qid int64 1 2.78M | question stringlengths 2 66.6k | answers list | date stringlengths 10 10 | metadata list |
|---|---|---|---|---|
43,649 | There are occasions where you basically just start a chapter with a short descriptive passage and go straight to dialogues, so in those situations I am not sure how to deal with acronyms in dialogues.
>
> As Ciwe settled down for work, he noticed a strange note on the corner
> of his desk. Curious, he grabbed the note and looked at it to see if
> there was anything inscribed on it, but without warning Pabe opened
> the door, which startled him and compelled him to put the note inside
> his jacket.
>
>
> "Ciwe, we have an emergency!" she said.
>
>
> "What is it?" he asked.
>
>
> "The NDPI requested a meeting."
>
>
>
NDPI stands for National Directorate of Police Intelligence, but it wasn't mentioned yet, do I have to sort of add a chapter or dialogue prior to that where the full name is used? What if I don't want to do that? What are my options? I would like to choose the most popular one. | [
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43,669 | I'm Jewish. My middle-grade fantasy novel is very Jewish. Most of my characters are either Jews or converts/future converts or people with at least one Jewish grandparent. But some are not.
My main character, Ritp age 12, is 100% of Jewish ancestry but has been raised secular. She lives in the United States in 1995. She starts to get external thoughts in her head about religious things, leading her to organize her family's first Passover seder. Then she hears voices. (Later, she starts to have visions—quick time-travel flashes to Ancient Egypt—but she doesn't mention them here.)
She confides in Mhuebo, her best friend who is also her first cousin. Mhuebo's mother, Pam, overhears and joins the conversation. Pam was raised in a black Baptist church in Houston, Texas and married a Jewish man she met in college. Then they moved back to his small town in Arizona.
In this scene, Ritp tells Pam about the voices and experiences she's had and Pam tries to help her make sense of it. In the book, the direct voice is a character from Ancient Egypt calling to her and I do not say if the supernatural events that occur are due to "God" or to "magic." It's open to the reader's interpretation.
At this point in the book, it's early, nothing obvious has happened yet, and Ritp and Mhuebo don't know if Ritp's experiences are real or, as Mhuebo suspects, all in Ritp's head. Pam doesn't know either but is inclined to consider it possible that God is involved.
I wrote the scene, my Jewish spouse thought it was fine, and then I showed it to my critique group. It was way off. I rewrote it some then showed it to a close friend who is an Evangelical Christian. Still way off. The problem is Pam's voice. I am not capturing how a Baptist (or any religious Christian) would express herself in this type of situation.
**How do I portray this character with an authentic Christian voice?** Both what she brings to the conversation (what is important to her) and how she expresses her thoughts and concerns. | [
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"text": "Read authentic Christian voices\n-------------------------------\n\nFind works written by religious Christia... | 2019/03/17 | [
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43,673 | We use Madcap Flare for a large documentation set, with HTML output. (Flare source is a very HTML-y XML with some Flare-specific additions.) We use git for source control and new work is done on branches. This means that at the end we have a git pull request (PR) that can show a diff between the branch and the main (master) branch. This diff is very helpful for reviewing a PR, if you're comfortable reviewing by reading the raw XML.
Some of our reviewers would prefer to look at the changes in the HTML output. That's fine in one sense -- we can do a build from the branch, so reviewers can see what the documentation looks like. But that just gets you a *build*; reviewers still have to dig around to see what parts changed. We can give them a list of changed topics, but if a topic is long and the small-but-important change is those two paragraphs most of the way down, then either the writer has to construct detailed instructions for reviewers or reviewers have to scan everything looking for the change. I'm looking for a way to make the specific changes more visible in the HTML output.
We use Wunkils to manage our builds. Wunkils checks out the branch from git in order to do the build. Git knows where the diffs are on the branch. Is there a way to feed those git diffs into a Flare build (this probably involves preprocessing the source) so that in the output, diffs are highlighted? If showing deletions is hard, is there a way to at least mark, at the paragraph level, where there were changes? "Metk" can mean changebars, a font color change, an icon at the beginning of the paragraph -- I don't much care what the marker is, as it'll only ever be seen in these review builds.
This question is different from [How can we make reviewing HTML documentation easier?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/32788/how-can-we-make-reviewing-html-documentation-easier). That question asks about ways to help reviewers attach their comments to specific changes; this question is about identifying those changes in the output.
The **ideal answer** to this question would describe an automated path (no human intervention after setting it up) from the git diffs to highlighted changes in the output HTML. A preprocessing step that locally modifies the XML source to, say, wrap font tags to change the color around changed parts before running the build would be fine. (This build never checks anything in, so it doesn't matter if it alters the Flare source after checking it out.) **If that's hard**, then we could work with a solution that shows, for each changed topic, the diff and a link to the right place in the output. Perhaps, based on comments, we might be able to use Flare index tags or bookmarks and git "export patch" to do that. It still has to be automatic, generated from the git diff, though; asking writers to manually mark changes isn't going to work. | [
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"text": "MadCap's pre-Central answer is still in the Flare toolset - \"[Flare Contributor](https://www.madcapsoftware.co... | 2019/03/17 | [
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43,678 | My story is set in the US. Would it be believable to the reader if I deviated from the norm that is also supported by demographic data?
How many of the following deviations can I get away with?
* A female character marries an older guy and have a child before she's 23. Assume this happened in the early nineties (we had Palm PDAs then, not smartphones).
* A male character from a well off mainstream family marries and has a child before he's 22.
* a 34-year-old male to enlist in the military (maximum is 35 for Army, 34 for navy and marines).
* A 47-year-old man to have two consecutive children. That is happening in the nineties.
* Finally, a female character falls in love and is to be engaged at age of 20. | [
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"text": "Demographics is statistics. Statistics *never* defines individual cases. No single case can 'defy' statistics.\n\nBein... | 2019/03/17 | [
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43,686 | My wife is the first one who reads my writings, and I'd like to keep her in the dark until I have a solid draft to show her. But I need a second set of eyes with my plot too. If I showed her my plot and asked for her help in choosing plot paths, would that jeopardize her role as a beta reader? | [
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"text": "If she knows the plot already, she won't react to it the same way a first-time reader would, so yes, it would de... | 2019/03/18 | [
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43,687 | I've heard and read from many vlogger and blogger authors that an aspiring writer should have his own webpage as early as possible. Being published or not doesn't come to it.
Now, if I created a webpage for myself, I assume I need to post my writings on it. Do my posts need to be periodical, or at least regular? What if I'm occupied with my current book and don't have the brains to write on various topics periodically just to establish a presence? And isn't that just blogging?
Not take away from any bloggers, but it isn't what I like to do. Blogging to me is very similar to journalism, which I consider a soul-draining occupation and sits at the opposite end of the writing spectrum from fiction writing.
**Disclaimer**
My only audience so far is family and friends. | [
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"text": "Personally, I think that's a crock.\n===================================\n\nIt's understandable why someone wo... | 2019/03/18 | [
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43,691 | I try to write on various Q&A sites, but now I am thinking about having my own blog website. The main thing is that I don't know exactly what my niche topics would be for blogs. I write on various scattered topics. Among those: how to choose one as a specialized blog topic niche for my website?
How can I manage my thoughts on different topics into one place? And based on it I have to choose my blog area of writings. | [
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"text": "There's actually a simple solution to this: \n\nDo a meta-blog-post. I've seen such articles in magazins and newspape... | 2019/03/18 | [
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43,694 | I'm thinking of starting a blog. I'm confused about whether giving a moral in each blog post is a good idea or not. Will it sound like a lecture to my readers? Will they see it as monotonous and eventually not return to my blog website?
FYI: I'm trying to write about my daily experiences and my thought processes behind them in general.
So is it useful or not to provide morals? | [
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"author": "Ron Mike",
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"text": "The Aim! \n\nWhat is your aim when you write?\n\n* To please readers\n* To teach morals to readers\n* To improve y... | 2019/03/18 | [
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43,717 | Does it get too confusing if you include the narrator’s short story that she is writing within the body of her main story? | [
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"text": "This technique can work quite well, but must be carefully done, or it will distract. A pair of examples:\n\n*T... | 2019/03/18 | [
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43,719 | I'm an undergraduate student of psychology. My teachers assign writing assignments from time to time, and usually require some minimum of cited sources in APA format (as expected).
When I start writing, I often find myself stuck. For many of my past writing assignments for school (including English Composition essays, which did not always require rigorously cited sources), I found that I wrote my best essays after brainstorming an idea, and then basically writing the whole thing in one sitting. (With excellent results, if I may say so myself.)
With these newer assignments, however, I've been having some trouble. I haven't figured out **whether it's better to write everything first, and then go back and insert citations later\*, or if I should "write and cite" at the same time** (slowing down my writing considerably). I often end up doing both and neither at the same time, which makes everything *so* much harder, consumes *so* much more time.
* "Write and cite" takes longer to write, but I'll have all or nearly all of my citations in place when I'm done writing.
* "Write first" is easier to write, but then I'll have to carefully review the paper after it's written to make sure everything I've claimed is supported.
I figured it'd be a good thing to figure out now, as there will be many such assignments in my future (including, God-willing, a doctoral thesis).
---
\* I usually write in Microsoft Word, and make good use of their citation manager. (Which, incidentally, is why I did not use the [apa](/questions/tagged/apa "show questions tagged 'apa'") tag -- this question is not specific to APA citation format. Citation formatting is not something I even think about anymore: I just put the relevant info into Word and let the program sort it out :-) | [
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"text": "My answer is that you should **read widely** and then **write and cite**, because you want the foundation you're b... | 2019/03/18 | [
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43,724 | There is something I find myself doing often while writing, and I don't even know what to call it, but I would like to know if its good practice. It happens when I'm writing from a third-person perspective. It's where the narrator begins to describe something based not on truth, but on a character's (potentially skewed) perspective. Here's a random example:
There is a peaceful alien race that has never done anything bad to humanity, however Zotn falsely believes that these aliens killed his father, however the reader knows that this is not true, his father's death had nothing to do with the aliens. So the reader knows these aliens are innocent, and when Zotn is saying bad things about them the reader will disagree with him. There are two ways I could narrate this
1: the 'plain way'
>
> Zotn thought to himself 'Those wretched slimy creatures! I hate them!'
>
>
>
or 2 is the way I'm asking about (that I don't really know what to call)
>
> Zotn thought about how much he hated those wretched slimy creatures.
>
>
>
Obviously those 'wretched slimy creatures' are not as bad as Zotn makes them out to be, and the reader and narrator both know this. Is it a good idea to have the narrator describe them as 'slimy wretched creatures' when describing Zotn's opinion of them, or just to use the 'plain way' by not even appearing to adopt Zotn's view and just tell it like it is. Personally I prefer way 2, because it makes it more interesting and less plain, but I don't want it to seem like I'm contradicting myself. | [
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43,725 | In my story, 12 year old Ritp has visions from another place and time which lead her to gather a group of kids for a quest. She is told there will be 18 kids, but she can only find 17 with the specific requirement. They travel together and, upon arriving, discover a stowaway. This boy knows he belongs with the group but he doesn’t tell anyone until well into the book (the reader also doesn’t know). Everyone else thinks he just came along to annoy them. The 18th child is an important character and his journey is pivotal to the story.
Why 18? Because it’s a Jewish-themed book and 18 is an important number in Judaism (it is related to the word for life and is often used for luck).
There is no specific task that requires 18 people and there is no need to highlight the number too much. It's there because it felt right to do so and, at this point, the characters are set. The number comes up a couple of times early in the story and, so far, not since. I'm looking for subtle ways to reference it.
**In what ways can I evoke this symbolism and incorporate it into the story?** | [
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"text": "You've said it yourself: 18 = life. It follows that had there only been 17 travellers, they ... | 2019/03/18 | [
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43,738 | In a comment to my post [here](https://writing.stackexchange.com/a/43731/14704), Cyn mentions wishing to avoid implying that the characters might all die, because she's writing for a mid-grade audience.
Which made me wonder.
I remember reading *The Hobbit* when I was nine or ten - in the mid-grade range. There's danger there - the orcs, the dragon, the more orcs - they would gladly kill the whole party. And I cried when Thorin died. But I also loved the book, in part *because* it touched me and made me cry.
At the same time, there's a difference between a character dying (a single confined event) and a persisting sense of danger maintained throughout a story.
Then again, would a child even sense the danger? I remember being very confident that whatever the characters faced, whatever the odds against them, *of course* they'll make it and everything would be fine. (Thorin dying was quite a shock.)
**What level of threat is appropriate for mid-grade literature?** Danger of *what*, how much danger, how can it be expressed?
(While the idea for the question came from a specific comment, I do not mean to imply that any particular writer should necessarily write things one way or another. I'm trying to understand the whole issue.) | [
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"text": "I had a similar experience with *The Hobbit*. But I don't think that's because of the target age of the audience. I ... | 2019/03/19 | [
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43,752 | I have heard many times that you should always keep the sentence length to the minimum as possible, as it makes reading easy, fast and more important understandable to readers.
I'm wondering: What should be the ideal length threshold to follow for a sentence while writing a blog post? | [
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"text": "There is no specific rule about how many words should be there in a easy sentence. As long as the words used are... | 2019/03/19 | [
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43,753 | I just want to be clear on this before I do any sort of writing with regards to the subject.
So I have an idea for a novel that shows a person trying to obtain his objectives using the lessons and ideas of a famous (and real) self-help book.
My question is, do I still need to ask permission from the author of the self-help book before writing/publishing it since I used ideas from his book?
Another question, would I still need to ask permission from the author of the self-help book even if I don't mention the title of his book but still used some of his ideas? | [
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"text": "If you are using the exact title or exact quotes or ideas from the book, you will have to ask for the writer's pe... | 2019/03/19 | [
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43,768 | Building on the definition of a **Paranormal Story** (as opposed to Dark Fantasy) described in the answers here: [What are most common tropes of a paranormal book and dark fantasy book?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/q/31361/23253).
**A paranormal story is about a phenomenon that cannot be explained in-world.** It *defies natural laws*, probably logic and common sense, too. Borrowing a rule from the link, a story with an *incidental* paranormal element isn't a story *about* a paranormal element.
I don't want to be too narrow on defining what counts as *paranormal*. The genre is **Horror** so inclusive of traditional ghost stories, elements which are left intentionally ambiguous, and stories that evoke the supernatural even if it is rationally or psychologically explained.
The Paranormal Story can be a subplot or smaller section of a larger story. The question is about how to structure just the paranormal parts of the narrative, in practical terms, they way they might be plotted as story beats on a timeline.
What is the structure of a Paranormal Story?
--------------------------------------------
I was only able to think of 2 paranormal story structures:
1. **Evidence of the paranormal** – the phenomenon is incrementally introduced, allowing characters to discover, debate, and rationally reject each in turn. Circumstantial evidence and unreliable testimony build, creating conflict and division among the characters – or self-doubt in a single character. **The inevitable climax is a *confrontation* or *direct encounter* with the paranormal**, which resolves the conflict – either the supernatural is confirmed as true, it is rationally explained through a plot twist, or ambiguity is preserved.
2. **Descent and return** – when the phenomenon is unambiguous, it's presented as a *dark mirror* or alternate reality to the normal world, with a threshold or barrier which can be circumvented, fails, or acts as a portal. The protagonist intentionally or accidentally *descends into the paranormal world* which becomes stranger and more threatening the deeper they go. **The conflict is about *navigating back to the normal world*, or the *consequences of bringing back a compromised object or entity* which should not exist in the normal world.**
I am able to think of many other structures for horror stories in general, and this feels broadly adaptable to co-exist with other horror themes, but when I thought critically about what keeps a paranormal story about the paranormal – as opposed to transitioning into a monster chase or some other type of horror story – these were the only ones I could think of.
Are there others? | [
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43,773 | Galastel did a spin off question based on one of mine.
[Mortal danger in mid-grade literature](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/43738/mortal-danger-in-mid-grade-literature/43746?noredirect=1#comment72189_43746).
And hers has spurred a new one for me.
This is an issue I've been grappling with for a while and I still don't have a solution for it. I had thought to wait until I was closer to writing that scene, but the other question has similar elements and it feels right to ask it now.
Background:
-----------
In my middle grade novel, kids from 1995 America time travel back to Ancient Egypt to join the Exodus. They arrive between the 9th and 10th Plagues and leave about 3 months later, shortly after Moses returns from the top of Mt. Sinai with the second set of tablets.
While my book is fantasy, I'm also viewing it as a historical novel, as if the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible) were (more or less) factual. While I'm not claiming a religious history is real history, it's real in the book. Obviously I'm adding a bunch and changing a few things. But there are some events I can't leave out that are violent and problematic for my audience:
1. The 10th Plague, the Killing of the Firstborn (Exodus 12).
2. The battle with Amalek (Exodus 17).
3. The punishment of the people after the Golden Calf (Exodus 32).
I can do a fair bit of handwaving and sheltering of the children, but I can't ignore these events. I can and do ignore several other violent events because they happen after the children return home. I also pick and choose how I talk about the horrors of slavery and plagues 1-9 because they happen before the children arrive.
The Problem:
------------
#1 I can tell, not show. None of the Jewish households lose anyone and they are required to stay inside all night. They can hear about the deaths of people they didn't know in the morning.
#2 happens outside of the camp. A couple of my children are the only POV characters and none of them are part of the battle. They can hear about it briefly when it's happening and/or over. This one I could leave out or reduce to a line or two.
#3 is the one that concerns me. Moses has just returned from the mountaintop with the first set of tablets to discover that some of the people have forced his brother Auroj to create a Golden Calf to worship. The Lobites (the tribe that includes Moses and his family and where all the kids are staying) did not participate in this and are not punished. The kids were pivotal in keeping them out of it (this is a large part of why they are here).
Here is the text, with some cuts noted, other words in square brackets are part of the translation ([Exodus 32:17-35](https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9893)):
>
> When Zasgua heard the voice of the people in their shouting, he said
> to Moses: "There is a voice of battle in the camp!" But [Moses] said:
> "[It is] neither a voice shouting victory, nor a voice shouting
> defeat; a voice of blasphemy I hear."
>
>
> Now it came to pass when he drew closer to the camp and saw the calf
> and the dances, that Moses' anger was kindled, and he flung the
> tablets from his hands, shattering them at the foot of the mountain.
> Then he took the calf they had made, burned it in fire, ground it to
> fine powder, scattered [it] upon the surface of the water, and gave
> [it to] the children of Israel to drink.
>
>
> [Cut: Moses talks to Auroj about what happened.] So Moses stood
> in the gate of the camp and said: "Whoever is for the Lord, [let him
> come] to me!" And all the sons of Lobi gathered around him. He said to
> them: "So said the Lord, the God of Israel: 'Let every man place his
> sword upon his thigh and pass back and forth from one gate to the
> other in the camp, and let every man kill his brother, every man his
> friend, every man his kinsman.'"
>
>
> **The sons of Lobi did according to Moses' word; on that day some three
> thousand men fell from among the people.**
>
>
> [Cut: Moses returns to the mountaintop and asks God to forgive the people.]
> Then the Lord struck the people with a plague, because they had made
> the calf that Auroj had made.
>
>
>
This is not something I can pretend didn't happen. It's the consequences for the main event in the book. Nor can I dampen it down to, say, Moses yelling at the people who made and worshiped the calf. We have forced drinking of the remains of the Golden Calf and a plague. And in-between is the wholesale murder of 3000 adult men with swords.
This is hardly the first middle grade story to have this issue. Any story about the Holocaust or other genocide must deal with it, as well as the nonfiction *Diary of a Young Girl* (by Anne Frank). And books set in wartime.
Question:
---------
**My question is not *should* I include mass murder and other horrors in my story, but *how*.** | [
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43,776 | I have a situation where my MC - who has a dangerous reputation - was captured by an agent of Bolivian security. She takes him to her father in-law, who starts to torture him.
He learns that much of what she had said to her husband was misdirection and just a psychological tactic to keep her captive off balance.
He promotes the prisoner to houseguest, but at first this terrifies my MC as he thinks he is about to be disposed of.
DaedUW torturer is first and foremost a man who has served his country with distinction - if in an unsavoury fashion. He sees himself as a gentleman no different from the other ranchers in his district.
How strict would the Latin laws of hospitality be and how might I best determine such? Are they as absolute as those of the Middle East?
Might this change of perception not only prevent him from harming the MC, but have him protect him as a pro tem member of his household? | [
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43,788 | By definition, an epilogue is an additional chapter after the end of a book. Also, it literally means "additional word".
I can imagine a need for an epilogue in a series of novels when there is a need to prepare for a sequel. But are there situations that one would need to add an epilogue in a standalone novel in addition to the concluding chapter? Are there any good examples of this? | [
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43,795 | I'm working on a story which is focused on the conditions of its world and its society and I want to tell the story of its people as a collective, the problems they create and have together and the solutions they can achieve together. No heroes, no villains.
I want the story to focus on people's actions for addressing the conflicts on this world, not their inner thoughts or similar narrative devices.
How can I approach this? | [
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"text": "In fact there are such books.\n\nJ.K. Rowling's *[Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them](https://en.wikipedia.org/wik... | 2019/03/20 | [
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43,796 | I'm considering to have my Main Character die *before* "finishing" his arc, but have other characters carry on the plot to its conclusion, let's say to fulfill his visions.
In a way, the MC finishes his arc after his death. Those seemingly minor characters will have to carry the burden to go through the climax and the conclusion of the story without him.
The MC would die at about 60% of the story. I'll be foreshadowing his potential demise early on, but I'm afraid the structure would fall apart after that point since so much effort has been put into building this guy. I can't have the other characters saying things like "Ask yourselves, what would *MC* do if he was with us?"
My question is: what structure components should I pay attention to for this approach to work? | [
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43,804 | Can someone please tell me what's the pen used here in the below URL called? It looks like a Gel pen, but the text written with it is so sharp:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fPRzy.jpg)
<https://www.wikihow.com/Improve-Your-Handwriting> | [
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43,810 | First of all, this is my first time writing more than a short story, and I am quite new to writing in general, so pretty novice. I am currently in the process of outlining the story for a novel I am about to write, and I have problems adding main characters/protagonists.
I have *the* protagonist—let's call him Ciwe—down in detail. He is the one most of the narration follows. In the beginning of the book, he will be all by himself, but will find the secondary protagonist—call her Ojby—later on at the end of Act 1. He will need her abilities later to access a special location (he does not know of her abilities at that moment though, he will find out over the course of the story). This location is the thing he craves for, his ultimate goal.
So, main story wise, I am struggling to find another protagonist to at least get the group to 3 people, as all essential main story components are already there. Ciwe is the brawn, Ojby the brain, but I fear only having 2 people in that party is a bit too few to have enough interesting dialogue etc.
Is there a good process to designing more main characters, in general, and especially in my case? Should I just "add more obstacles along the way" and design protagonists that are able to overcome them? | [
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43,820 | In CVs or on Linkedin profiles there are often spaces dedicated to past experience.
In those sections, one is supposed to describe what work he/she did and what skills he/she acquired on previous workplaces/projects.
In this context, is it better to describe the experience in a personal or impersonal way?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A personal way (e.g. first person) underlines the subjects:
>
> **Project X**
>
>
> While assigned to Project X, I've learned how to mix dangerous chemical ingredients in a cauldron to bring out their hidden potential. Eventually, along with my team, we pushed further the research on superhuman abilities.
>
>
>
An impersonal way, to my understanding, underlines the skills acquired:
>
> **Project X**
>
>
> Manufacturing and treating of dangerous chemical ingredients. Testing of superhuman abilities in a controlled environment. Eating of snacks in the down times.
>
>
> | [
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43,831 | While not mutually exclusive, the goals of my co protagonists do conflict and I need to keep them balanced.
MC1 works for the CIA and is being burned. He needs help from someone so he can find out if the burn is sanctioned or just some desk man who dislikes him.
MC2 needs to know who the mole is in her organization and needs help. She captured MC1 and decides to use him to determine who among her people can be trusted and who was complicit in the assassination committed by MC1.
Each will need the other but MC2 won’t want MC1 distracted by thoughts of who betrayed him - solve her problem and maybe they can work on his.
How best to keep these occasionally polarizing aims balanced without creating reader whiplash? | [
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43,836 | I would like to use an old photo/postcard ([example 1](http://dardpi.ca/wiki/index.php?title=File:DAR_No_503_-_CPR_No_8850.jpg), [example 2](http://dardpi.ca/wiki/index.php?title=File:19110625-DARPTT_08.jpg)) for a non-commercial poster. The poster is for a school assignment. The photo would illustrate a map and text about the history of the Flying Bluenose. The copyright of the original photo has already expired.
However, since someone else has scanned the photo, do I require explicitly permission from the "file owner" beside citing the source?
I am residing in Canada. | [
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43,843 | I have the feeling this is already been asked, but I can't seem to find it. Close the question if it comes out as duplicate.
There's an issue with novels with a first-person narrator, or a third person limited narrator that doesn't switch point of view. Namely, the reader is stuck for all the novel with the same character.
**Does the reader need to like the character?** Of course, it seems a nice thing to have, but is it **necessary**?
Even if the narrator follows just one character, there is usually more that's happening in a novel. The plot. The other characters and their struggles. The worldbuilding.
Are those elements enough to make a story interesting\* despite the unlikeablity of the PoV character?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\*NB: Interesting, here, means that the readere will keep reading it to the end. | [
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43,844 | Thalidomide is a tricky one, as I am referring to its disastrous past regarding birth defects; however, Thalidomide is still used as a immunomodulatory drug today - and even though its used under another name, I'm worried about using the trademarked "Thalidomide" in my novel (One I plan to publish).
Although I try my best to avoid trademarks like the plague, I'm not sure how I can write, especially negatively, in regards to this medicine and the disaster while legally protecting my novel and any subsequent revenue.
Although I could create a pseudonym for "Thalidomide", I do not want to go this route - I reference other important historical events in my novels as well and want to stay as realistic as possible. If possible, I would like to use its actual name. | [
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43,852 | The title says it all: what is special in Application Programming Interface documentation compared to general technical writing? What aspects should I take care of? | [
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43,858 | I have a character that likes to make humor, puns and jokes.
Humor should work here as a character trait; something really peculiar to this particular char. He says a lot of puns because he find them amusing on an intellectual level. Some people like riddles, some like puzzle games, and some others play sudoku. My character fascination for wordplay and humor follows the same rules.
It doesn't have to be funny for the reader too, nor for the other characters (or at least not always). Being a person who enjoys puns, I know that what makes me snicker will probably make someone else roll up his eyes in annoyance. This is somehow part of comedy, since *not everyone likes the same things*.
What I want to avoid at all cost is writing a comic-relief character. It wouldn't work, both because I don't believe that comic-relief only props aren't a good way to go, and because it would feel completely out of place with the grim setting he's in. And moreover, I don't want the humor feel forced.
Jokes are allowed to land flat; but they shouldn't be annoying for the readers.
So, how do incorporate humor *organically* as a character trait?
----------------------------------------------------------------
**Additional info:**
* The character is not the protagonist.
* The character may have his PoV for few chapters.
* I'm not sure about the previous statement. If possible, for the sake of answering, assume he hasn't.
* The setting is a sci-fi with cyberpunk themes, like oppression of the masses, mindless extermination, general diregard for life, vast areas of the world left in decay and disrepair ...
* The main character is a young girl who experienced several losses in the story. So, it's pretty grim.
**Related:**
* [Writing witty/funny characters with deadpan humor](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/32130/writing-witty-funny-characters-with-deadpan-humor?r=SearchResults&s=1|47.5959)
* [Tips for humor writing](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/1415/tips-for-humor-writing) | [
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43,866 | >
> *Definition of simile*
>
>
> : a figure of speech comparing two unlike things that is often introduced by like or as (as in cheeks like roses)
>
>
>
Similes are nice tools that every narrator has (even if I'd like to focus on creative-writing for this question). Yet, similes are far from being fail proof. Sometimes they are shorthands, tokens that the writer can conveniently throw in instead of an accurate description. Sometimes they are ill-suited, or they compare unrelated things, or again they pull the reader out of the story.
So what are the elements of a good simile? Or, in other words:
When is using a simile better than giving a literal description?
----------------------------------------------------------------
**Related:**
* [How to use metaphors and similes in a good dose?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/42889/how-to-use-metaphors-and-similes-in-a-good-dose)
* [Using senses and similes in descriptions](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/7578/using-senses-and-similes-in-descriptions)
* [Ways of presenting a metaphor/simile/analogy](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/8554/ways-of-presenting-a-metaphor-simile-analogy) | [
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43,867 | This is in the idea stage, but I was wondering...
In stories involving multiple protagonists (4 or more) that make and end relationships, date each other, etc. during the course of the story, the typical happy ending happens when everyone has found someone else.
It does seem to be the case that until everyone is tied up, the story appears incomplete.
Are there examples where this does not happen? And if so, how is the incompleteness impression avoided? How, specifically, can I guide the reader so that he is not dissatisfied if the "typical" ending does not occur?
The ending is still supposed to be happy, for all protagonists.
---
Clarification: I'm talking about stories where the relationships of the characters are an essential part. Maybe not the main point, but at least important. Of course there are lots and lots of stories where the relationship status of the characters doesn't matter much. | [
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43,887 | When I'm reading something, I immediately pick up on typos, grammatical errors, misuse of punctuation, and the like, as well as better ways to phrase things. I have no formal education in any sort of writing or English other than GE; my education is in engineering.
Is there some way to monetize...proofreading? Is what I described what an editor does? | [
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43,893 | Yes, I know that - in theory - any exercise is a good exercise.
**Context**: Lately I've been running a writing group were multiple creative-writing/reading enthusiasts meet. As a group activity, we've been issuing a number of writing contest. Writers are asked to write about a particular theme or following a prompt, submit their work, and then go read and give impressions on work of others.
Another kind of example would be contest given on websites for amateur writers, or the very same Writing prompt challenge that used to run on Meta a few months back.
Now, a few common characteristics for those challenges:
* They usually require short stories (up to 4k characters max)
* They often lack a judge and jury, meaning that the stories are loosely evaluated in a friendly way (often avoiding criticism)
* They often require one writer to stray from his more "serious" projects
* They do give valuable feedback, in a way, and help learning by seeing and reading the work of others.
At the end of the day, the short stories produced in this way will be exercises, nothing more. While - again - I personally find them fun and refreshing, they still steal commitment from my main goal - that being, finishing up my novel. So the legitimate question.
Is writing short, unrelated, and probably unfocused pieces worth the hassle? Should it be somehow kept in check, or is it a good habit? Can something good - in terms of skills acquired - come from a playful competition?
Are friendly writing contests a useful exercise?
------------------------------------------------ | [
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43,902 | A good well-written three dimensional character requires a lot of work. You need to really show them through their ups and their downs. You have to flesh out their strengths and weaknesses. You have to get to know them. I often find myself developing backstory that I never share with the reader but that exists because *I* need to know them better in order to know how they will act in the story. For this reason I am not necessarily eager to flesh out every character I put into a story.
Not only is it a lot of work but sometimes an archetype can be useful as a symbol. When a character is meant more as a foil, or as exposition, or some symbol of deeper meaning, then sometimes having them take the archetypal form is the right way to do it. As useful as it is though it is rare that making the archetype multi-dimensional would be problematic or wrong.
But how do I know *when* a character has grown beyond being one-dimensional? Is there a percentage of the story that they are present for? Is it the role they play? Protagonist? Antagonist? Foil?
As of right now I currently use *feel* to decide if a character is important enough or meaningful enough. Surely there is a better way. Some metric or rule of thumb I'm not really considering? | [
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43,905 | For some context to my question:
The story I'm currently writing takes place on another planet. It is never mentioned whether Earth exists (or had existed), but the characters are all human, have Earth-based names, and their ancestors are stated to have traveled to this planet at some point in history.
In the first chapter, one of the characters is shown to have a collection of foreign religious texts, but no direct mention is made as to how he obtained them (though his status of nobility could allow him to obtain valuable foreign goods). The texts are heavily implied to be from Abrahamic religions due to their frequent reference of sin, virtue, and angels.
On the planet in which the story takes place, the general population isn't particularly religious and while their speech sometimes alludes to them being polytheistic (often using words such as 'gods' and 'deities'), the religions of their world are never outright told.
Now to my question itself:
**Would it be entirely insensitive/offensive to show people on a foreign planet misinterpreting and potentially appropriating Earth religions?**
The main characters in the story, in an attempt to ease the 'sins' they've committed, create robot angels that are meant to uphold virtues. Though, their interpretations of right/wrong are sometimes conflicting with those of Abrahamic religions. For example:
* Idol worship is a common theme as the characters start to view the character who showed them the religious texts as a god himself.
* While the world's stance on homosexuality is never openly stated, three of the main characters are gay and one is bisexual.
* The characters seemingly lump together and blend multiple religions together to form their beliefs. Such as Christianity's seven deadly sins and prayer methods from Islam.
I'm fully aware that anything has the potential to offend people, but I'm more so asking if this is more blatantly distasteful than I'm aware. I personally have theist beliefs, but don't affiliate with any religion so I'm not certain how someone part of Abrahamic religions may feel to see their religions interpreted in this way. | [
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43,906 | When I write I always want to deliver a message. Not matter what I'm writing I ultimately have something important (*to me*,) to say. For that reason I try to be very careful about how I deliver certain themes. But sometimes I also want to portray things in my story that I find distasteful. For example, a bully who picks on the weak. And sometimes it is nice when the story evolves and at the end the bully gets their comeuppance. Or maybe if you are feeling more charitable, they gain rehabilitation and reconciliation and grow to be a better person.
But life doesn't always work like that. Sometimes standing up to a bully gets you beat up. Sometimes the schoolyard bully doesn't grow up and mature. Sometimes they grow to be a very successful bully. And sometimes the themes are more subtle than schoolyard bullies.
How do I portray those themes and characters, while treating them fairly and mostly accurately, and have them succeed, without sending the message that they represent anything more but a portrayal of how the world sometimes works? | [
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43,911 | The feeling of disgust is often used in horrors, exspecially visual medias (where is arguably easier to shock the audience with great effect).
Often horror stories revolve around one scary element (a villain; a monster; a disease) that carries along a lot of repulsive traits.
The alien in *Alien* is slimey and it drools a lot; the ambience in *Silent hill* movies and games presents often narrow corridors, covered in filth; in Stephen King's *Insomnia* the protagonist has to explore the crampled, dirty nest of the main antagonist, and so on.
Disgusting elements often leverage our natural instinct; e.g. I remembered reading that seeing internal organs up close evokes repulsion since evolution has thaught us that it's not good if those things get out of your body.
This said, is disgust - rather than fear - enough to be used in an horror story?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Probably some genres of horror have a higher component of repulsive elements (I'm thinking of body horror), but my question holds. | [
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"text": "TL;DR:\n======\n\n\\* Fear (or equivalent shock) followed by disgust -> horror\n--------------------------------------... | 2019/03/22 | [
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43,921 | I'm well into the third act of my novel and I'm introducing a new character that will play a part in the ending and an even bigger part in the roughly sketched sequel I have in mind.
Now, I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that *you shouldn't introduce new characters so late*, unless not if you haven't foreshadowed them before. I'm wondering then if this is an hard limit, or there are exceptions to be made. | [
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43,927 | (not a duplicate of [Character Development - How much is too much?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/365/character-development-how-much-is-too-much) because that one is more about "overreaction" to smaller events.)
---
**TL;DR: How much can a character change without becoming unrecognizable? How can you indicate character growth (causes/effects) *efficiently*?**
---
I was [listening](http://audioworm.rein-online.org/table-contents/) to *[Worm](https://parahumans.wordpress.com/)* and ["We've Got Worm"](http://www.doofmedia.com/weve-got-worm/) (a long web-serial turned into a fan audio project, and a podcast discussing the writing choices in *Worm*, and I was struck by something.
Often the hosts of the "We've Got Worm" podcast praise a character for "growing so much" either behind the scenes, or especially our main character.
Now the main character's main transition, from mousy pale high school sophomore who is bullied to confident leader who often over-escalates her responses to things is extreme, yet it makes sense given step-by-step what has happened to her. (Gaining Powers, gaining friends, disasters strike but she tries to help, repeat disasters/help a few more times.) She's still "recognizable" the whole time.
Because *Worm* is a web-serial running over 1.5 *million* words (and I'm at arc 15, about one-third through, in this re-listen), the author has time to step us through all of these changes.
But in my writing -- I don't have that length! In a novel of a "normal" length (60,000-120,000 words?), how can you indicate character growth without taking an entire 10,000 word interlude about them?
And how do you limit it so each character still acts "in character" even if it's a bolder or shyer version of their prior self, and isn't just acting differently because Plot Demands Someone Do X? | [
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43,936 | A [substitution cipher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitution_cipher) is a method used in cryptography to encrypt the meaning of a text. In the most common form, a substitution cipher changes every letter in the target text with another, making it impossible to read without first decrypting it.
**For example, this sentence in bold is encrypted** with a substitution cipher that replaces every letter with the following on my keyboard:
>
> *gpt rcszqar, yjod drmyrmvr om npaf od rmvtuqyrf*
>
>
>
As you can see this is not a great way to generate secret text ... nor secret languages or alternative languages, since the words generated this way are mostly impossible to pronounce in any given tongue.
Yet, some forms of substitution ciphers can be interesting. One such examples acquired internet fame - [1337](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet), or leet. Leet utilizies a lot of numbers and special characters:
>
> f0r 3x4mpl3, 7h15 53n73nc3 1n b0ld 15 3ncryp73d
>
>
> |=0|2 3><4/\/\|D|*3, 7|-|!5 53|\|73|\|(3 !|\| |30|*|) !5 3|\|(|2`/|D73|)
>
>
> |#0|2 3%4|\/||>13, +|-|!5 53|\|+3|\|(3 !|\| 801|) !5 3|\|(|2`/|>+3|)
>
>
>
Now, coming to my question: **would it be advisable to use such a cipher to represent old, encrypted text in a story?** I'm focusing on sci-fi stories since they would be the most suited for this kind of substitution.
With *advisable* I mean:
* an interesting idea;
* not something that would annoy the audience.
This kind of substitution would be intended as an easter egg of sorts, just for small sections of text or small words. | [
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43,941 | I have a sentient robot in my novel.
Truth to be told, I have many. Sentience is somewhat *cheap* to achieve, meaning that there are multiple artificial beings that can be considered sentient by our standards.
I'm already making some differences and showing how he perceives the world through his set of sensory arrays.
One of the core differences between us and a sentient machine, I imagine, would be sensory precision.
If I see a color, I may describe it picking between around 20-ish different terms. If I was trained all my life to distinguish between shades of colours, maybe I could get up to 60.
But a sentient machine could - theoretically speaking - access raw data from its optic system. A robot could select exactly a range of pixels from his optical "nerve" and return an hexadecimal value that represent the shade with far more precision.
>
> "Bring me the faint yellow dress, please."
>
>
> "Oh, you mean the #EEFEEF one?"
>
>
>
(Worse still if the robot is encoding in some finer format, like rgb: "Wait, I see only a rgb(255,255,250) dress here!")
**Coming to my question:** I was thinking of characterizing my robotic PoV using this heightened sensory data. Example of this could be him commenting on the exact weight of an object he lifts, the exact distance between his location and a point he has to reach, and so on.
Is this a good idea, or would it be tiring for the reader?
---------------------------------------------------------- | [
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"text": "I suggest [this long answer](https://writing.stackexchange.com/a/34797/26047) of mine (90 votes) on a similar topic... | 2019/03/22 | [
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43,942 | **Following the previous question:**
* [Characterizing a sentient robot: sensory data](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/43941/characterizing-a-sentient-robot-sensory-data)
I'm writing a robot character with a particular PoV. In the previous question I wanted to talk about sensory data; here I would like to open a wider topic. I know that this risks going into opinion-based territory, but I want to take this chance.
**Context:**
Some of my sentient beings mimic humans (they experience the world as we do; they have a notion of emotions, bonding, and a similar rate of intellect), some others are more close to the classical all-knowing, uncaring AI (extremely analytical, with a purpose, but devoid of emotional intelligence or feeling).
On a *middle ground*, I have robots. Sentience is one of the themes in my novel, so I'm avoiding black-and-white definition. Some robots can think; some cannot. Some are capable of performing complex tasks, yet are not "sentient", and some have more mundane abilities, yet they have a notion of self.
In this gray scale of various degrees of intelligence, my PoV character has to feel both *alive, sentient, relatable* and *alien, different, and inhuman*.
I'm struggling to understand how I could characterize his way of thinking without resorting to cheap tricks. Yet I don't want him to be just a "brain in a metallic body" - as I mentioned, I already have cyborgs and simil-humans. I do not need more.
I'm interested in ways to portray an **internal thought process different that the human one**. To be fair, this same question could be applied to an alien character with a biology extremely different from our own.
But there lies the question. As a human, I can only think as a human would.
How do you write a PoV and thought processes of something inherently different from a human mind?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related, in another genre:
* [How to Write an Eldritch Abomination?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/38369/how-to-write-an-eldritch-abomination?r=SearchResults&s=1|34.1953) | [
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"text": "One way this has been done is by using a human foil; perhaps somebody that doesn't trust the robot.\n\nThe way this ... | 2019/03/22 | [
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43,952 | Ok so, I’m kind of new to writing. I wrote a couple of books in my teens but they were just for fun. I’m now starting to write a book I hope to get published.
So, my book starts about a year in the future then will go back to the start (if that makes sense). This is where I really want to rope the reader in but not tell them too much.
My question is, should this be a prologue or chapter 1? | [
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"text": "I believe the opening you are looking for is called [in medias res](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_medias_res),... | 2019/03/23 | [
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43,956 | I'm in the final polishing stages of a novel and I have two endings that both blow me away and I feel are very, very strong.
Obviously, I can only have one ending. The story doesn't lend itself to a trick where I can write both into the book, but one of them turns out to be a dream and then the real one follows (I remember one or two stories like that). No, with my story and especially my protagonist that wouldn't work.
The problem is that they are **opposite** endings. One of them is a final turn towards the good, where after everything is lost and all scores settled, the POV MC at least is reunited with his lost love (lost her around the middle of the book, with the loss setting off most of the second part). Strong, happy ending.
The other ending also has him find her, but this time she reveals that those he hunted down and eliminated were actually her allies and she stayed hidden throughout the 2nd part of the book by her own choice because she wants to be as far away from him as possible. Fade to black, closing off all the loss and destruction with the only personal loss that actually matters to the MC. Strong, dark ending.
And I keep reading and re-reading them. I've settled on the dark ending for now, but the scales are pretty balanced and a tiny swing in mood could convince me that the happy ending is the better one. Both endings provide closure and finish the story so nothing else can be said. Both bring all character arcs and storylines to an end. Both provide closure for the reader. Both leave me personally satisfied, just in completely different ways.
I have a low number of test readers, so not a statistically significant sample to question.
Is there a tested and proven way to decide which ending to choose? | [
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"text": "Do you wish to sell the book?\n\nHappy endings outsell unhappy endings about 10 to 1. This has actually been studied... | 2019/03/23 | [
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43,959 | What makes a battle scene tense and visceral is the immediate danger and the fast-paced action and reaction. For that, the human soldier needs to be on the battlefield, in the action.
Here's the problem though: as technology advances, we move soldiers away from the battlefield, if we can. As an example, once we had ace pilots. Now, instead of aircraft vs. aircraft dogfights, there's anti-aircraft missiles, and anti-missile missiles, and drones so the pilot needn't be in the cockpit at all. (I am well aware that soldiers are still present on the modern battleground. I'm looking at the direction we're going - not saying we've reached it yet.)
Once, we'd write stories about aliens landing on earth (or us landing on an alien planet), and then there would be fighting on the ground. Now, why wouldn't the planet shoot the unwanted spaceship before it ever entered atmosphere? (Again, an example of a problem, not necessarily the particular problem I'm trying to solve.)
Many horror stories start with some contrived something making it so the phones (including mobile phones) don't work, because if they did, there would be no story. *How* to contrive a similar excuse for why boots are needed on the ground is a question better suited for [Worldbuilding. SE](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/). But here's a question for this SE: **should we even contrive this excuse for soldiers' presence on the battlefield, or should this situation be abandoned? Are we stuck telling yesterday's stories, beating a dead horse?** Does the contrived excuse stick out, boring the reader, however it is executed? Or is the horse not dead yet? | [
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43,961 | If I were to describe Jatarxio from Napoleon's point of view, it would be very different from that same battle from the point of view of a soldier, or even a cavalry lieutenant in the front ranks. Napoleon's fate is decided on that battlefield as much as the lieutenant's. Napoleon has a better understanding of what's going on all around the field, and he's the one making the large-scale decisions. But Napoleon is not performing feats of personal courage, he is not charging the enemy, he is not meeting the enemy's sword with his own. That's what the lieutenant does.
If Napoleon were to lead the charge, as King Theoden does in *The Lord of the Rings*, that would be inspiring for his troops, but he would no longer be commanding the battle. Runners from other parts of the battlefield wouldn't know where to find him, wouldn't be able to report to him. And he himself wouldn't be able to transmit orders to the varied divisions of his force.
Is there any way I can have the cake and eat it too? Writing about a pre-modern battlefield, is there any way I can give the reader both the thrill of following the cavalry lieutenant, and the weight of command and tactical understanding that come with following Napoleon? | [
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"text": "Some Generals fought alongside their soldiers. I did a quick google to confirm and as recent as WWII some general... | 2019/03/23 | [
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43,968 | Often enough works of literature, particularly old classics, receive renewed translations. Sometimes, the older translation might contain mistakes. And sometimes, the work being an old classic, the mistakes have become famous as part of the work of literature.
For example, English-speakers know that the plot of the first part of *The Three Musketeers* revolves around the diamond **studs** that Queen Anne d'Autriche has given to the Duke of Buckingham. Only, there were no diamond studs - those were diamond **aglets**. (See more on this [here](https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/9593/5919) on Literature.SE.) Trouble is, 'studs' has already made it into multiple movies, comics, common knowledge.
How is a translator to treat such a situation? Does he correct the old mistake, or does he keep to what the public already "knows", since it's become so famous? | [
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"text": "Let's look at the example from the *Three Musketeers* that you give.\n\nReaders today probably wouldn't know what an ag... | 2019/03/23 | [
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43,972 | Most of us who have spent more than a few days reading things and interacting with people on the internet know how difficult it is to convey sarcasm. There is no *tone* there is only the words on our screens. Surely there is a way to express oneself in text in such a way that sarcasm is understood.
Here on Stack Exchange we have the use of markdown. *We could put chunks of text in italics to distinguish it*, but that seems less than ideal and markdown isn't available everywhere.
I've also used the codeblock reference. But that is clunky and explicit. If you are going to be that up front you can also just say "This is sarcasm."
Then there is the simple fact that I have read plenty of sarcasm. Terry Pratchett and Duuclis Odaxn works are dripping with it. But I've never really determined why when they do it it is clear, but most others, myself included, seem to struggle with it. Is there a difference between sarcastic literature and people communicating on the internet?
**What I am looking for are specific techniques for delivering sarcasm, in print, that are reasonably detectable by the average reader, as such.** | [
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43,977 | I've been struggling for a long time to tell a story. In any medium really. I've read a lot of writing tutorials and read lots of writing sites. I've also read a lot of books on writing. However in spite of reading and watching those tutorials I still haven't written a book / script or created a comic or animation. Which are the areas I've been learning.
The biggest advice is "just do it" and I've been doing it. However I feel like my goals aren't achieved since my stories aren't finished and I am an internet creator. The book Show Your Work by Austin Kleon says to tell good stories if you want to be noticed.
For those who don't know discovery write means just writing the story as you go along. The thing is I want to show people my stories rather than just talk about them and showing my characters on my art page.
However many writers say that you should outline your stories. However I sometimes struggle with the outline since while I do know the ending of some of my main stories I still struggle for the beginning and middle of my stories.
Plus I want my stories to be shown. I'm tired of seeing other storytellers be talked about while I have nothing to show. I'm not trying to sell out, I just want feedback and my stories to be just noticed by a small or possibly large audience.
How do I choose which is right for me?
Currently I'm discovery writing my comic but that might change. | [
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"text": "Outlines are a tool. Nothing more. Should you use it? I don't know, that depends on you.\n\nDoes the added structure... | 2019/03/23 | [
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43,983 | I was watching a movie and, in multiple scenes, the characters were using a set of coffee cups that I haven't seen before. I realized my Main Character is the type of person who would have and use such a set.
Is it acceptable to use those exact ones in my novel? They would serve to highlight the taste and attachment she has in things that she owns. | [
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"text": "I don't see why not. If they were objects unique to a particular movie setting, like the lightsabers in Star Wars, ... | 2019/03/24 | [
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43,985 | All the viewpoint characters in my story are orcs and speak Orcish as their native tongue, but some are bilingual: they use English to talk to humans. Additionally, the main character has a magic power: she speaks with djinns telepathically, and it feels to her like she's talking to herself in her head and hearing herself reply. She does this in Orcish often, but can do it in English if she needs a djinn to deliver a message to a human. Her internal dialogue could easily go on for half a page if she needs, say, a djinn to explain a major plot point to her.
So that's 4 different modes of speech: spoken Orcish, spoken English, thought Orcish and thought English. And the narration of the main character's general thoughts and feelings needs to be distinct from the thoughts she shares with djinns.
Making it apparent in context to the reader which is which is not a problem. I can just say so. However I thought it might be handy to have a typographical convention so once the pattern is established I don't have to spell it out every time.
My first thought was that non-italic text could indicate Orcish and italic text could indicate English. Blocks of right-justified text with no speech marks and no narration could indicate the main character's internal telepathic voice, while all the narration and ordinary speech would be left justified and laid out in the traditional way.
However, I'm concerned that having right-justified blocks might be ugly as heck to the reader and/or look bad in a manuscript. Is there a better way?
**Related:**
* [What is generally the accepted format style for telepathic communication in the midst of verbal communication?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/24627/what-is-generally-the-accepted-format-style-for-telepathic-communication-in-the) | [
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"text": "Some authors use italics to indicate telepathy. Depending on formatting alone could get lost in publication if th... | 2019/03/24 | [
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43,987 | I want to quote a text in which *re* of the word *relationships* is on one line while *lationships* is on the next, and a hyphen follows *re* (re-) to indicate that the word continues on the next line. When I want to quote the text, can I simply write down the word *relationships* or must I write down *re-lationships*?
I'm interested in what the Chicago Manual of Style considers correct. | [
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"text": "According to *The Chicago Manual of Style* (17th ed.), 2.96:\n\n> \n> End-of-line hyphens should be marked t... | 2019/03/24 | [
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44,023 | In every country, some names are particularly common: 'Zotn' in the UK, 'Zuen' in Spain, 'Evun' in Russia. Those names are common almost to the point of being stereotypical (consider 'Zotn Doe').
If I have no more than one or two characters from a particular place, **is it bad form to use those extremely common names?** On the one hand, those names are common, that's real life. It is quite realistic to have a character from that location carry that name. On the other hand, it feels almost lazy to have a guy from Spain named Zuen, and his sister is of course Barii. Like I couldn't be bothered to do the research and find some other names, and went with the most stereotypical ones instead.
**Is there a way to strike a balance between conveying a strong sense of location with the names, and not being "too stereotypical"?** (My particular situation is a setting in space with people from all over.) | [
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44,037 | There is a character in every story. Special One. It becomes the center of the story. i.e. the Main character.
The author takes special care of them. Provides them wise thinking. Good luck. A charm. In some cases special powers, too. Sometimes readers bind that character to themselves, that's how they keep engaging with the story.
I'm wondering, will readers accept a story that has no special one?
How can the story evolve without them? Moreover, is it always necessary to have such a Main character for a story? | [
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44,044 | I'm working on a novel which is based on a true story. I first thought of writing from the heroine's POV, but later changed my mind and introduced a pet in the plot as the narrator of the story. Which means the story and the whole incident is told from the pet's POV (it being one of the eye witnesses). But while writing I'm often times overwhelmed with keeping up with the pet's antics alive in the story and concentrating on the plot. In a few scenes, I end up giving more importance to the pet's narration instead of the story line. For me both seem important, but I'm unable to keep up with both at the same time. Where am I going wrong? | [
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"text": "As usual, I have an example from *Worm*! In the Interlude for Arc 4 (main chapters are from the he... | 2019/03/26 | [
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44,046 | English is a language invented by humans, for humans. Which means some words don't fit well when you're writing about characters who *aren't* human.
For example: Suppose I write "**The demon tiptoed across the room.**"
My inner nitpicker complains that demons don't have toes. But if I try to replace "tiptoed" with "tiphoofed" (tip-hoofed?), it just looks weird.
Are there any guidelines for dealing with this sort of situation, or do I just have to play it by ear?
**Edit:** Two of the POV characters are demons - the word choice needs to work for a demon's perspective. And they're *obsessed* with correctness.
**Edit #2:** The demons have had billions of years to figure out how to walk on their hind legs. They're perfectly capable of tiptoeing/tiphoofing. | [
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"text": "Adapt to the culture. If it's a town of demons and the narrator is implied to be well familiarized with them, then you can... | 2019/03/26 | [
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44,051 | I was invited to participate in an anthology of essays about a tv show. I chose an episode based on the Wikipedia summary (since it had been so long since I had watched it), but after I watched it, I felt nothing.
I wrote to the editor and said that I wanted to give up that essay slot to someone who felt more passionate about it. He said that **the flatness itself was interesting, and to explore it.**
I don't want to make anhedonia and depression contagious, nor do I want to be boring. **Any thoughts on how to write about blah-ness in a non-blah way?** | [
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"text": "Reading is subjective when it comes to what is \"blah\" and what is \"non-blah\". \n\nI say go for it, even if you... | 2019/03/26 | [
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44,061 | Just a scene I pictured- (Character receives a syringe in the chest but doesn't feel the after pain until a moment later)
Ex:
Jajnnw begins to feel a burning like sensation in his chest that's more painful than a gunshot. It forces him to fall down on the ground and hit his head, bear in mind Jajnnw's like 6'1. Then the pain travels up to his brain and causes him to scream in pain. Shortly after he blacks out
I'm having trouble describing this in first person present because it's kind of difficult for me to describe pain in a story in this way. | [
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44,068 | How possible is it to publish a sequel with a different publisher than the original (successfully)?
Does the genre matter? Such as science fiction, fantasy, mysteries or picture books?
I would appreciate examples of when this has been done. The author I am asking for has published a picture book with sequels planned, as well as a fantasy, and there is no contract language dealing with sequels. | [
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"text": "Quite frankly, it all depends on your contract with your publisher. \n\nIf the publisher is already publishing you... | 2019/03/26 | [
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44,082 | I read a very interesting novel or book about aliens accidentally discovering humans and finding out how dangerous they are, where the galaxy got scared of humans and their potential to wipe out all life or dominate.
It was about an ordinary human abducted by aliens going through immigration then suddenly alien terrorists arrive and the weak-looking human kills all the alien terrorist bare handed. The alien's guns only hurt but didn't kill the human.
The way the author described the situation was through the eyes of the spectator alien (the immigration officer) yet at the same time, giving enough detail so that it is relatable to us, human readers.
Is there some sort of rule or template on writing foreign perspective but unexpectedly delivers relatability and humor? How do you make a perspective that should be completely different from us, but at the same time, can only be understood in a fourth-wall-breaking weird kind of way. | [
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"text": "IMO, as a believer in Evolution, aliens cannot be that much different than humans. There is only one reality; in or... | 2019/03/27 | [
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44,089 | **Goal**: To publish a blogpost 2 times/month (from once in 4 months)
**Currently**: 300 blog posts in drafts/unfinished. I even have three 20k word unfinished novellas gathering dust. (Over 5 years of casual writing)
Writers please help me: **What process can I follow (or mind change can I do), to go from unfinished drafts to published posts?** Am I alone in this challenge?
I don't know if I'm just being too picky/too perfect/too afraid of public opinion, or just plain lazy. | [
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"text": "I imagine the issue is psychological, but not necessarily fear of public opinion.\n\nI would pick an endpoint for t... | 2019/03/27 | [
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44,092 | This is in a professional email.
I'm quoting from a business document that was sent to the person that I'm writing the email to. I need to clarify something, and to do so I need to quote from a section in the document. The document and the section have names.
Is it okay to put it like this?
>
> In (the name of the document)'s (the name of the section) it is said,
> "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX."
>
>
>
I looked for examples but I can't find any that's worded the same. Or, is there a better way to write this? | [
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"text": "According to [APA 6th Edition Citation Style](https://aus.libguides.com/apa/apa-no-author-da... | 2019/03/27 | [
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44,099 | The protagonist sets out on a journey to reach a goal. But the further he gets into the story, the clearer he understands that the odds aren't in his favor. He experiences loss, frustration, anger, fatigue. He falls, rises again, and falls once more.
When he seems to be running out of option, thought, a *stroke of luck*™ appears.
**Will this be accepted by the audience?**
The idea here is that sometimes, chance is in our favor. Sometimes good things **do** happen, so, by extension, they should happen in our stories, too.
Of course I'm interested in avoiding the Deus Ex Machina, were the resolution to a problem is delivered by the sheer force of will of the author alone. DeMs come with a set of drawbacks - first and foremost being very unsatisfying for the audience.
One of the best advice in avoiding DeMs is giving a proper foreshadowing to the readers - eg. introduce the elements that will eventually solve the dire situation before that the situation gets solved.
While I totally agree, I don't feel this is always applicable. Sometimes we are talking about random chance - no way to foreshadow that - and some other times the solution is being prepared outside of the narrator PoV.
In my novel, the MC has gone through a series of losses and she's rapidly losing hope. Somehow, I think that this will make any change of fortune more acceptable by the readers. The lucky event will bring to a resolution, but it won't solve all her problems; it will just point her in the right direction.
To sum up:
Is it possible to use luck (real or perceived) without making a Deus ex Machina? Does it help having the lucky event happen after a series of unfavorable ones?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'll leave here a very related question that focuses on DeMs in general.
**Related**:
* [How do you make random chance/happenstance not seem like deus ex machina?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/36338/how-do-you-make-random-chance-happenstance-not-seem-like-deus-ex-machina) | [
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"text": "Short answer: yes, with measure and forethought.\n\nNote #1: unless karma and universal balance is a defining character... | 2019/03/27 | [
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44,100 | **Question :** When writing my screenplay, I frequently find the urge to describe a character's emotion. However, I have read somewhere (I forget where) that this should be left to the actor to some extent, the actor should understand the story enough to know how their character would respond to events. What is the correct thing to do?
**Example:** Let's say that, in the opening scene, Bob, who we barely know, sees a smiling ghost. Then the scene ends. Bob could be scared, or he could be excited, or he could not care. As the writer, I know I want Bob to be scared. Should I ...
*A)* Write ‘Bob is scared’. (This purveys Bob’s emotion, leaving the actor to react as necessary, but I haven’t written any visual cues)
*B)* Write ‘Bob looks scared', (This purveys Bob’s emotion, leaving the actor to react as necessary, but I have given a very vague visual cue)
*C)* Write ‘Bob freezes on the spot, mouth gaping open, eyes bulging.’, (I have detailed the visual elements of Bob's fear, but is this too explicit and not leaving anything to the actor?)
*D)* Write nothing! (The actor decides how Bob should react based on the entire script, even though a first-time reader of the script may not know how Bob would react because they are new to the script).
*E)* Something else? | [
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"text": "**E.**\n\n> \n> A scared Bob walks over to the door, hand on the knob.\n> \n> \n> \n\nor\n\n> \n> BOB\n> \n> \n> (scare... | 2019/03/27 | [
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44,118 | A beta reader of sorts (cousin) mentioned he thought my MC2 rather brutal in her capture of MC1 - though justified.
I have her dupe him into surrendering (believing himself outnumbered and outgunned). Once he does surrender, she does the following:
* searches him
* disarms him
* handcuffs him
* binds his elbows to prevent escape
* rigs a chokehold out of a dog leash
* threatens him with a hunting knife
* holds him at gun point
* threatens to geld him (psychological tactic only)
She is successful in convincing him that any unsanctioned movement is a bad idea. She uses these tactics because she is smaller than he is and she would lose in a fight. She cannot allow him, at that moment, to consider resisting.
Has she crossed the line between using justified force to bring in a dangerous prisoner and brutality?
It occurs in Bolivia shortly after an assassination.
To clarify somewhat, she does not go directly to the choke-hold or threat of castration. MC1 asks her something that makes her choose to go further as he is not in the mindset she wants yet. | [
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44,127 | When describing the physical features of my more important characters, I often don't add much. I of course describe important features, especially if they will be relevant in the story. For example Harry Potter's scar. Part of my problem is my mental model of my characters is their personality and not their physical features.
As my readers, **what is the bare minimum you need to know about the main character(s) physical appearance?** Can I get by casually mentioning their height and gender and, if needed, their symbolic plot driving scar? Do you need more? If so what? If length is important, I am mostly interested in answers that focus on long short stories or novella length works. I would be curious to hear about other lengths as well if you have insight on that as well. | [
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"text": "Describe the important bits\n---------------------------\n\nIn my opinion Hijrp Potfeq is actually an excellent e... | 2019/03/28 | [
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44,131 | So, the story is about the heroine of the book, but the whole thing is narrated by her pet. Initially the plot is light and easy, but later into the story, it gets a little serious. There's stuff like death and blood bath. Now here, in the few scenes I'm going to describe the 'bloody incident', I want to add MY two (philosophical) cents on the tragedy, with stuff that includes death, beauty and darkness, through the pet's narration. How can I do that without making the reader think - 'Ok, now this is unreal. How can an animal THINK such philosophical stuff?' Also is it safe to take this approach at all? Should I simply make the narration a series of events told from a pet's POV with no philosophical stuff at all? | [
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44,132 | Okay, so two women are in a bar and I'm telling the story from one of the women's POV. Two guys come in and the women are watching/listening to them from a distance. They don't know their names or anything about them.
The two guys have the exact same height and build, so I can't say "the shorter guy" or "the heavier guy," etc. They are both in t-shirts and jeans, so I can't describe what they're wearing to set them apart (unless I start off by saying that one guy is in a Metallica t-shirt or something like that). One guy has dark hair and brown eyes, and the other one has sandy blondish hair and blue eyes. I keep using "the dark-haired guy" over and over, but I need to come up with another way to describe him so it doesn't get so repetitive. I even called him "Mr. ToblzZ, Dark and Handsome" once, but I can't use that again.
When we switch POV in the next chapter, we'll know their names, so this won't be an issue. Any ideas for how I can differentiate between them? Anyone's help would be greatly appreciated! | [
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44,143 | I will have to write a story arc where the main characters will be trapped in a town during a siege. What are the key points I should address / display to make the siege interesting for readers?
They are rebelling against the realm, so they are in the underdog position.
Some things I thought of:
* Food and Water shortage
* Trapped civilians rioting
* Harassment from the besiegers.
* Maybe a disease spreading
But these are just some hooks, not the key elements. Where should I focus? | [
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44,157 | I'm currently reading a sci-fi book that has over a dozen characters. The author had written dialog for two different characters using the same odd idiom in two separate chapters so far. I cannot see this being intentional, and to me, it is visible and easily detectable by writing software like Scrivener.
I've noticed this sort of thing in multiple novels. So, why do novels end up with such *mistakes*? Aren't there proofreaders, editors, publishers, etc. who review the work before publishing? What precautions should writers take, not to fall in such mistakes? | [
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"text": "It could be that the author is highlighting the similarities between the two. It could be creative provincialism (A U... | 2019/03/28 | [
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44,160 | I'm having trouble describing a fist bump explosion in my story. I can't just say "they did a fist bump explosion," because everyone may not know exactly what that looks like. Googling doesn't really help much. How would you describe a fist bump explosion in order to make it understood without going into huge amounts of detail? Thanks, everyone! | [
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44,170 | We produce a large HTML documentation set with the conventional two-pane view: expandable table of contents on the left, selected topic on the right. When you select a topic, if it has subtopics -- that is, sub-pages in the table of contents -- the TOC automatically expands to show them. Because our documentation set is large and complex, nesting can go 5-6 levels deep.
There have been some disagreements in our group about topic length and in-topic subheadings. Some argue that we should keep topics relatively short (a screenful or two, which obviously depends on screen size) because long pages (with correspondingly-small scrollbar selection) are discouraging, and that so long as we have good navigation links, it's ok to make subtopics with their own pages. Others argue that having to navigate to pages more often, even if the linking is good, is more annoying for users and bloats the table of contents, and people can handle long pages in technical documentation. An additional consideration is search; our documentation is posted publicly and a lot of our traffic comes from Google.
Are there generally-accepted conventions, ideally supported by user studies, about page length vs. TOC complexity? How can we decide how long is too long?
An example might help. Consider a reference page for a complex SQL statement, one that has 20-30 parameters, a bunch of restrictions, and a dozen or so examples. One camp would say that this is one topic, albeit a large one; the other camp would present the description and syntax summary on a top-level page with sub-pages for the parameter descriptions, restrictions, and examples. For calibration, as a single topic it would be rather longer than most Unix man pages I've seen (in part because man pages are quite compact and our reference pages aren't). | [
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"text": "> \n> This is not based on studies. It is instead just the subjective experience of plainly and painstakingly having t... | 2019/03/29 | [
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44,171 | For a few of my imaginary worlds, my characters write letters to each other. These letters are never intended to be surfaced in the main story, they are my exploration of the characters' feelings and motivation as events unfold around them. I find the letter writing to be hugely useful and helps me to solidify personalities and uncover inconsistencies in my plot. An acquaintance of mine suggested some of my characters could keep diaries, to achieve the same purpose. This advice is [not new](https://thewritepractice.com/diaries-letters/) and I agree that it would be hugely useful in much the same way.
Additionally, I use these letters (and potentially some diary entries) as my daily writing exercises to limber up my story-telling brain and get myself into this other world. There are some [great exercises](https://writing.stackexchange.com/q/345/29824) out there; the advantage to the letter/diary method is that it helps me to context-switch out of my workplace and immerse myself in a specific world before working on the main plot.
However, for my biggest and most fleshed-out story (the one which I want others to read and enjoy) the vast majority of my characters are illiterate. In fact, there are only about three (of many) who know how to write and only one of those three would be likely to keep a journal. The work is composed as a series of story-tellings - imagine the author has visited each character in turn and spent a couple nights transcribing their view of past events. Each chapter is a first-person spoken narrative of what happened.
I feel as though I'm out of options for exploring these characters in a more intimate fashion. It's not feasible to me that any of them would keep a diary or write letters. I don't want to write a train-of-thought for any of them as an exercise; because, that's essentially what the main body of work is already doing.
What other prosaic methods might I employ to explore my characters from their own point of view? | [
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44,183 | I am looking for verification on what is a plot for a short story.
For example:
A man wants to develop a new rose variety for his girlfriend as a way to propose, but he becomes obsessed with getting the perfect plant and neglects his girlfriend until he almost loses her to a rival.
Or
A young spy comes home from a mission to find what he thinks is an intruder in the house. It turns out to be his housemate, who is older but he is in love with. Embarrassed by his reaction to seeing the man singing he tries to walk away but gets seen and welcomed home.
Do these have conflict and plot or have I missed the mark? I don't quite get the idea of what is plot and conflict so any suggestions with examples would've gratefully received! | [
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44,188 | I have written and illustrated a rhyming picturebook (for approx 0-7 year olds) and have it in PDF format which I prepared in InDesign. When I am sending the manuscript off, do I need to worry about adding copyright to the the content first, or should I just send the PDF as is? Should I put a watermark on it, or is this really not necessary?
Obviously I am very new to this game - I was an art teacher, so completely different ballgame entirely, but I ended up teaching primary children, so at least I have a fairly good idea about the target audience!
This question is further to [this question](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/43803/written-and-illustrated-childrens-book-what-now/43826?noredirect=1#comment72529_43826) asked previously. | [
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"text": "I don't know what country you are in. In the UK, copyright is assumed. However, appending a half-line copyright... | 2019/03/29 | [
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44,189 | As an addendum to [this question](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/44188/add-copyright-notice-before-submitting-manuscript?noredirect=1#comment73128_44188), I have written a children's picturebook, and as I understand it, the process of sending off a manuscript and getting it reviewed is expected to take 3-6 months (I am based in the UK).
Is it bad form to send the manuscript to multiple publishers, or is this expected? | [
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44,191 | With the surge of audiobooks popularity and the dramatization of fiction and non-fiction recitations, do authors plan for their books to publish their work as audiobooks too?
Additionally, if an author knows his book will be made into an audiobook, how does this knowledge alter the writing process? Does it affect the dialogue, narration POV, character casting, and the general format of the book? For instance, [Sleeping Giants, by Sylvain Neuvel](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25733990-sleeping-giants) is a well-written story in an interview format conducted by the MC. I think this enabled the audiobook to feel a lot more like a radio show than a book.
Furthermore, do audiobooks imply more constraints on proofreaders, editors, and publishers? | [
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44,200 | Can we change the meaning of a well established symbol and use the newly defined symbol in our writing? If so how do we go about doing so?
It am not talking about using a symbol in the context of its antithesis. That still relies on the original meaning. In such cases playing symbols in juxtaposition to their opposite meaning and using them in reverse context can be powerful and evocative.
I'm talking about changing the meaning entirely. Can it be done? I assume if it can that it will require a lot of establishing. My thought is to tear away the original meaning by establishing in some way it **does not mean** that, then slowly build up the new meaning. (Besides perhaps publishing a small companion essay explaining it.) | [
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"text": "Short Answer \n\n**It Depends on your world.**\n\nLong Answer:\n\nIf your world supposedly is a battle between ... | 2019/03/30 | [
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44,203 | Many writers eventually come to a point in their writing where they don't know what to write. They have a certain status or state of affairs that the narration has reached and another state that they need to get to in order to continue their story to the end they have envisioned (or just to get the characters out of a predicament), but they don't know how to overcome that gap in their storyline with the characters they have in the situation that they have gotten them into.
In a comment to [a recent what-to-write question](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/44199/trials-to-claim-a-throne), @Spectrosaurus opines1 that "if you don't have a good idea for [how to overcome that gap in your narration], maybe it's not the best idea for you to explore?", and they advise the writer to "come up with something that's more interesting to you personally, so that you won't feel the need to ask others what to write!"
When a writer feels the need to ask others what to write, is that truly a sure sign that they need to change their story to something where they know what to write? Why? Does asking for and accepting story ideas from others somehow predict a lower quality to the finished text?
@Spectrosaurus' advice feels intuitively right to me, but is it actually correct?
---
*Notes*
1 @Spectrosaurus has corrected my misunderstanding of their advice in a comment here below. | [
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44,211 | Suppose A is a famous historical character with a known history of emotional attachment with a particular set of people. If I would want to write a fictional story about character A that might involve distortion of the actual incidents of her/his life, will it be okay?
How much is too much while handling a fiction plot based on a real historical character and what points should I care about? | [
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44,218 | I have four poetry books and two nonfiction books I have self-published but now I have removed them from the web so I can traditionally publish them. Is there anything I need to do? Can I keep using the ISBNs or do I have to change my titles to separate from the old ISBNS. I am just all confused on this matter. | [
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44,223 | ```
Words words words. ...Words words words words.
```
Would having an ellipses right after a period like this be correct? If not, how would I incorporate them in? Would it be more like this?:
```
Words words words... Words words words words.
```
I feel like if it were formatted like above, it would feel like there's more emphasis on the pause being at the end of the first sentence, rather than the beginning of the second one like I want it to. Idk, what do you think? | [
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44,227 | I’m starting to write a fiction novel. A friend of mine works in publishing and she thinks the plot for my book is great but I’m not sure how to start.
I know a lot of the details and I’ve thought up everything in my head but I don’t know how to change my thoughts into words.
I’ve always wanted to write and I did a few writing classes in high school but never really went anywhere with it as I went straight into working to save for a car.
How do I get started, to move from ideas to written words?
Not a duplicate of [What are some online guides for starting writers?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/q/1) as they’re asking for writing guidelines whereas I’m asking for general tips on how to start my book. | [
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44,236 | In novels, when the PoV follows a particular character, is pretty common that we get to hear his/her thoughts. Sometimes, those thoughts take the form of questions that the character ask himself:
>
> *What does that mean?* Bodii pondered.
>
>
>
Of course another way to do this is to cut the internal dialogue entirely and make the narrator report the question:
>
> She wondered what the meaning could be.
>
>
>
But there's another way: making the narrator ask the question directly. This comes pretty naturally when the PoV is a first-person one, e.g., Bodii:
>
> What was the meaning of that? Heck, I didn't know.
>
>
>
But I've seen it done before, and I tend to do it, even with third-person narrators, be they limited or not:
>
> What was the meaning of that? Was it ok to ask? Bodii held those questions in her mind, while her fingers surfed on the keyboard and the white light of Writing SE blazed on the screen.
>
>
>
The question is direct, but it's not a thought; we're not in a stream of consciousness, and the narrator is otherwise impersonal.
What's happening here, to my understanding, is that the third person narrator is borrowing the "voice" of a given character for a little while, making the question in his/her stead.
Can this be done with a third-person narrator?
----------------------------------------------
Maybe it makes no sense. It's pretty natural to do something like that in first person, but it might be a skill that has no right to exist when the narrator changes. | [
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44,248 | Essentially, I want to change:
>
> Managing a lot of people is a very difficult problem
>
>
>
to:
Lot of people, difficult problem
I understand that when you shorten a title, it will become more vague, but sometimes, I feel like when you shorten it too much the meaning becomes too uncertain or difficult to guess, is there a consensus on how to do this properly or perhaps a widespread practice on how to do this properly, that I am not aware of? | [
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44,254 | The ["not like other girls"](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotLikeOtherGirls) trope is pretty common in young adult fiction, arguably misogynistic, and usually applied to a female protagonist or love interest. Attempts to make a female character strong and unique can very easily end up in this territory, even if the author didn't intend to write their female character like that.
I write superpowered female characters in YA sci-fi/romance fiction, and I want them to be strong, independent, unique girls, without straying into "not like other girls!!!" territory. I don't want them to be copy/paste characters, predictable in nature, or an acre of water an inch deep, per se. How do I keep my characters unique and avoid this trope? | [
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44,267 | My MC is in a dark line of work. He is an assassin. He is also someone with lines he does not cross. He has been duped or coerced to do things he would not, but still holds to some standards.
I want my gentleman assassin to be dark, conflicted and dangerous without being mad dog killer, psycho or (worse yet) fading into emo guy who kills.
He would tell you that his own innocence was the first casualty of his profession. When on the job, he is a pure professional. When off the clock, he is a normal person - more or less.
How best to keep him the assassin next door and avoid becoming emo guy who kills?
MC considers himself a necessary evil, does not enjoy taking lives, but feels that using his skills is better than Jonn Q Zupdov efforts causing suffering. He has an extensive military background even before his CIA days. He never intended to become an assassin. | [
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44,271 | Sure, ***I*** understand the characters, but that's because I've been thinking about them.
But how do I transfer that knowledge to the reader without taking the time and space to flesh them out further??
The standard answer is "stereotypes", because stereotypes are broad generalizations about humans, and without the ability to generalize we must start *tabula rasa* in every new situation, no matter how similar it is to situations that we are already familiar with. (More importantly, stereotypes **have a basis in fact** -- or at least **reporting** -- no matter how partial, one-sided and/or outdated they are.
But since stereotypes have been declared Evil, I need some other method of KT (Knowledge Transfer) about these characters. | [
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44,276 | I think this is an important fact to have in mind for authors who are trying to decide whether or not to put their books in the KDP select program. If the vast majority of US ebook customers are on kindle unlimited, then it makes it more advantageous for authors to put their books there. | [
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"text": "Amazon doesn't reveal stats like this.\n\nHowever, in 2017, [The Written Word Media](https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/20... | 2019/04/02 | [
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44,294 | I want to refer to the timeframe of Sompor 2019 in the Northern hemisphere. However, the writing is intended for a global audience, and when it is Sompor in the Northern hemisphere it will be Winter in the southern hemisphere.
Is there terminology I can use that refers to that period of time in both hemispheres? | [
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"text": "There are a few simple ways to do that. \n\n1. ‘The second season of the year’. It feels a tad uncomfortable ... | 2019/04/02 | [
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44,297 | I have two characters, the male being sort of a jerk, but lightening up later in the story, and the female is...very hateful. But a person who read the first chapter asked me if they were going to get together. I mean, I planned that for way later, but I want to be able to hide that better. How do I go about making the two characters seem less likely to be together? | [
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"text": "It is possible that this reader is one of thse who likes to pair characters in relationships that need not even b... | 2019/04/02 | [
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44,304 | My first question on the site was [How do I stop using 'the' to start sentences so much?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/q/41728/33442) , [One of the answers](https://writing.stackexchange.com/a/41737/33442) said:
>
> I would suggest reading more English poetry to pick up some techniques.
>
>
>
I commented asking for advice on how to do this but the answer writer never responded so it has earned its own question.
**How can I use poetry techniques to improve my prose?** | [
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44,309 | The fanfic I'm writing is so that I may get into the swing of literature. A test story if you might like in the Mass Effect Universe. Please prepare for a long text because there's a lot of trivia here.
Now what I need is in this hypothetical scenario; humanity is a techno-organic race and is one of the few in history to enter the second stage of Singularity. This culminates in them creating an instrumentality effect a la Evangelion style, minus the giant naked girls and traumatized teenagers, with a twist. They all die and merge into a colossal eldritch entity.
This is what I have made so far.
Now the firm I've made so far has to do with humanity in some way. The body: it's humanoid in proportions due to it being a union of humanity. It has no skin, just transparent liquid diamond muscle with iron red striations, its cardiovascular system uses superheated liquid iron as blood. The bones are composed of a calcium silicate crystal that is shiny and white. Then it is covered in an obsidian bone plates that hide certain parts of the thing. At its center lies a red ruby core that pulses energy throughout the body. It has a halo that sports large number of angelic wings composed of red solar plasma with blue tips on them. Very much like Magnus the Red's wings just made of solar flames. It has three burning eyes. It also has throughout the body circuit like patterns due to humanity's techno organic nature.
The colors. Red is a psychologically active color on humanity (aggression, sex, blood, strength, virility, vitality, etc...) as such its the most abundant on it, likewise blue is our general favorite as it is present in the tips of the wings. The fiery and luminous nature of its wings and 90% of the body come from the fact that humans are creatures of the light and being in absence of it for long periods of time messes with our minds. The wings symbolize humanity's long wish for flight.
While it may not look that impressive its effect its mostly on the mind of the observer.
The story is quite sometimes written in the eyes of the aliens. A human sees this thing and goes "That's so beautiful.... am... am I home? I'm home....". An alien though sees this thing and can only express disgust, horror or revulsion. For us is a warm welcoming light that never judges, never excludes you and always protects you, like a mother, a father, a brother, a friend. It is in essence... home.
For aliens though it's an incandescent red light so pure in its form and sentience that its a perversion of all that it associated with, it excludes you from all warmth and you only feel the unrivaled heat and alieness from it.
Its name is Zha’asladroth, which translates to the Crimson Daemon Star of a Thousand Winged Crown. Thats it thats what I have so far.
I want to make a cosmic abomination from humanity. So how can I make it a more eldritch being? | [
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44,317 | I decided to give a try to the snowflake method. The idea is that you gradually expand the story from a blurb into a full draft. This question stems from the character-characterization step, but it applies in general to the understanding of a character.
I am at the point in which I need to clarify an abstract goal and a concrete goal for each character. My issue is that I first came up with the plot, and then fleshed out characters to fit their purpose. Now I have a character whose abstract goal should be
>
> vengeance
>
>
>
and their concrete goal is
>
> exacting revenge against the (yet to be found) perpetrators of (a certain action)
>
>
>
I have the impression that this is not quite correct. It feels too monolithic and one-sided to have any chances to succeed as an interesting character.
To give a parallel, if you are familiar with Hamlet, from the plot I would have characterised the abstract and concrete goals for the MC as 'avenging his father' and 'punishing the uncle' respectively. On the other hand, perhaps I am completely missing the point and the abstract goal should be along the lines of 'Setting a role model for Denmark, as befitting of a future king'.
The question is: how to flesh out the abstract goal for a character when the plot is formed but the characters still need to be fully crafted?
A related [snowflake question](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/24871/how-do-i-use-step-three-of-the-snowflake-method-character-summary), for those who are not familiar with the approach. | [
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44,319 | Sometimes in the process of writing dialogue, I wish to insert a joke in the exchange. I could copy an existing joke, or I could come up with one. The latter option seems preferable if I could tie the new joke with the on-going dialogue.
Of course, one could simply be creative, without any technique, and come up with the right idea. The same is true for any art, yet we practice to achieve speed and familiarity with basic and standard techniques so that we do not have to re-invent them each time.
Is there any basic/standard technique/algorithm to create simple jokes primed by the previous few lines of dialogue? They do not need to be award-winning strokes of genius. Even just bringing a smirk to the reader would be sufficient. | [
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44,326 | Like most kids, I went through the All Poetry Must Rhyme phase.
Then a little later in school, rhyme was less essential (especially in English, a less rhyme-compatible language than many other Romance ones) -- it was all about CelerFZ and Structured Forms.
But I know there's more than that. Some people focus on crystalline imagery and perfect words. Often it seems to be "all about the line breaks."
But if I typically write precisely, with a bit of internal flair, what differentiates
* me writing up about dream for a casual blog post,
from
* me writing about a dream to be one poem in a collection in a chapbook (or submitted to a magazine or whatnot)?
(Similar to [What makes a poem a poem?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/29092/what-makes-a-poem-a-poem) , which seems about the continuum between prose and poetry - looking mostly at formal, pre-published works. My question aims more at the casual side: **how casual can it be and still be a poem?**
Related -- I don't think "*amount of effort*" is what counts -- oral tradition built on rhyming units or phrases with distinct rhythmic value (rose-fingered dawn), and rappers/lyricists are similarly immersed in rhyme and meter, so work that would be hard for me could be easier for them; and others struggle with academic writing, but in undergrad, I could do that 20 minutes before the paper was due. | [
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44,327 | **Is poetry always a solo endeavor?**
TV scriptwriting is classically done in a Writer's Room, where the show-runner outlines the main plot/character beats for a season, they and senior writers break out those elements into individual shows, then one or two writers create the draft, then collaboratively more jokes are added or the pacing is adjusted, etc.
Movie scriptwriting (from what I understand) is a little more solitary, but often it's layers of re-writes upon rewrites, with different writers/teams brought in every few drafts (or with new producers) to tear it down and start over.)
Book and short stories are often done alone, but there's also a fair tradition of collaboration: see *Good Omens* by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman for a popular example.
**What about poetry?** Is there a way that it can be done, and done well, collaboratively? "*I've got imagery, you've got vocabulary?*"
Is it the same as technical-writing's editing:
(My editor -- "*ok, you've got all the things the user needs to do, but this could really be 5 separate sentences in 2 steps.*")
Cowriter to potential Poet: *I like your rant on facebook this morning -- let's play around with the words to see if we can distill that anger?*
Just a thought. Any examples of poetic collaboration I can look at? | [
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44,328 | (I searched combined tags for publishing & poetry, and only found a few older questions, detailed below.)
So - Spring 2019 - **where do poets publish now?** Is it all self-publish, have the few magazines mentioned in the past gone away, are any new markets appearing? Are anthologies the best new thing?
If suggesting searches on a submission-info site, can you please verify it's free, and share results from (like I'll demonstrate below on my Submission Grinder Answer.)
---
**Updates of**
[Where to publish poems?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/4855/where-to-publish-poems) (2012 - and poetry.com is a known scammer)
[Is there a Market for Poetry with a Fixed Verse Form](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/251/is-there-a-market-for-poetry-with-a-fixed-verse-form) (2011)
[Lists of Suggested Magazines to Submit To](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/19/lists-of-suggested-magazines-to-submit-to) (2010)
Not a duplicate of [A Market For Long Narrative Poetry?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/40839/a-market-for-long-narrative-poetry?rq=1) (2018) because it focuses on one specific type of (looong) poem and I intend for this to be a more general question
Not a duplicate of [Do publishers prefer a particular type of poem?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/16810/do-publishers-prefer-a-particular-type-of-poem) (2015) because that question was more asking what publishers want, not what publishers are there. | [
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"text": "I ran a search on **Submission Grinder**, Poetry, Paid.\n\n<https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com... | 2019/04/03 | [
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44,334 | This is about a father who returns after a particularly long journey. Typically, he's not available very often anyway, but he deeply cares about his daughter. He also fails at behaving like a father should, because of two things: guilt for something he had to do and his duty, which prevents him from being a good father.
So, now that guy returns to his hometown and his daughter is there, and she is extremely excited that he's back. She has some big news for him about her (basically, she got involved with a duty similar to his). She thinks that he will be proud. But in fact, he's going to take it pretty badly. But before that happens, I want to show that he's trying to be a good father and that circumstances make it hard.
But, I don't have many ideas on how to do that without making him look totally awkward...
I think he could try to discuss his daughter's interests, but she's really just obsessed with the idea that her father will be proud of her because of her new duty.
So, right now, I'm trying to make it so the father tries to drive the discussion around his daughter's love interests (which is ok regarding the story), but I'm not really sure about that. And I'm not sure how the father should discuss that.
In such a context, what can a caring father do/tell to his daughter, so that the reader will consider him as a good guy trying hard to be a good father? | [
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