qid int64 1 2.78M | question stringlengths 2 66.6k | answers list | date stringlengths 10 10 | metadata list |
|---|---|---|---|---|
47,259 | It is my understanding that the Cherokee, prior to the Trail of Tears were bilingual, being educated in both Cherokee and English. Is it possible that a Cherokee man in his late twenties would have the same accent as a fifteen-year-old Caucasian male? Both characters were Christian, educated in schools, and lived in vi... | [
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"text": "Basically, what you want to know, is whether a non-native speaker who grew up in a linguistically foreign culture can a... | 2019/08/11 | [
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47,266 | I am writing a short story, about a particular field with multiple specific terms, none of which are in English. (Specifically, I'm writing about bullfighting, but the question could apply to other fields.)
My POV character lives that particular field, so he would be using the proper terms, not more general nonspecifi... | [
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"text": "A story like this is about what the MC experiences, and should be told in the MC's voice, but it's also impo... | 2019/08/12 | [
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47,273 | India has a diverse range of languages and accents. Moreover, people from different parts of the country have different accents of speaking the same language as well. For example, a person from Gujarat state tends to speak English in an altogether different accent than a person from Karnataka state.
The accents add t... | [
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"text": "Simply telling, e.g.\n\n> \n> he said with a heavy Gujarati accent\n> \n> \n> \n\nwould be m... | 2019/08/12 | [
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47,283 | So, this probably came up already thousands of times, though here I am. So let me explain...
I have a story I want to tell. I am planning for it to become a novel, possibly multiple novels because of its scale. It's quite a long ride, and I have the characters planned out so far, and I know where everything will go to... | [
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"text": "You should definitely tell the story you want to tell, and not some backstory that leads up to it. You are n... | 2019/08/13 | [
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47,299 | I am writing a short story where the narrator is recording a message to his daughter about some tragic event and in between the narration, the narrator sometimes tries to address directly his daughter.
Basically, the narrator recounts his story in the past tense, since it happened twenty years ago, then he shifts to t... | [
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"text": "We use tenses to establish a temporal order between statements and from there derive chronology and causality between ... | 2019/08/14 | [
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47,302 | In almost all the LitRPG stories I read, the start of the stories is full of system messages, +1 here and there, even damage prompts saying "Goblin hits Hero for -8 HP". Classes, skills, experience points galore.
For those that don't know, LitRPG (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LitRPG>) - it is a genre more prominent ... | [
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"text": "It is an unfortunate example of the hook and content curve. It is a measure by which the artifact of the work tak... | 2019/08/14 | [
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47,315 | I have written and drawn a children's book. It's an adaptation of the Hobbit condensed into 32 pages aimed at 4-8 year olds (can be read to and read by children). I had the book printed for private use (it was a Christmas present) but I would really like to publish it to make it available for others because so many peo... | [
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"text": "If the book is clearly based on the Hobbit and uses the names of characters from the Hobbit, you are treading on thin ice... | 2019/08/15 | [
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47,316 | I know a lot of books do it (Hijrp Potfeq, LOTR, Wheel of Time). It's even part of the "Hero's Journey". However, my book starts with the "inciting incidient" i.e. my main charatcer begins her first day at school. Part of the reason I did this was to subvert the expectation that a book has to start with the "normal wor... | [
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"text": "I would strongly advise against adding chapters into the beginning. Of course, it has to be said,... | 2019/08/15 | [
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47,317 | So I am writing a book, the start of the book sounds interesting even to the my "board" of readers. After a while I had 586 words in total **SO FAR**,I am not sure if my writing is nonsense. This is my 5th revision of the book, all the other ones were nonsense - my teacher told me.
Is there a good way to tell if my wr... | [
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"text": "I think you have several things going on here:\n\n* You are probably overthinking your writing. With less than 600 ... | 2019/08/15 | [
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47,331 | Writing can be a very difficult, frustrating, stressful and effortful process. It can also be very isolating to the writer. Given that writing is a form of communication, **what is the point of writing material that you're pretty sure no one else will ever read**? Isn't it a complete waste of your time and effort?
*No... | [
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"text": "For many years --decades actually --my goal with *every* piece of writing I wrote was that it be read and appr... | 2019/08/15 | [
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47,348 | One of the most common pieces of writing advice I hear is that you should write frequently and often. Writing regular entries in a diary should fit this criteria, but I'm hesistant to call my years of writing entries as serious, qualitative writing practice.
I do focus on more open-ended topics and don't usually dead... | [
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"text": "There is a distinction that needs to be drawn here: are you talking about practice that helps... | 2019/08/16 | [
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47,353 | **I'm working on a novel that will have at least three distinct sections** in three distinct locations (the two main characters start in the first location, travel through the second location, and one stays in the third location). I have an overall story arc that connects the whole narrative, and I think there are stro... | [
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"text": "I tend to write my novels as way more episodic than this (to the point that they are episodic short stories with conn... | 2019/08/16 | [
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47,354 | As I mentioned in my [other recent question](https://writing.stackexchange.com/q/47353/10479), my novel in progress has three main locations. I feel those three settings are strong, fully imagined places, with interesting storylines.
However, they aren't side by side, and this is a setting where travel takes time and ... | [
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"text": "I suppose it depends entirely upon what you're hoping to acheive. If the liminal location isn't there for any other re... | 2019/08/16 | [
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47,368 | A dialogue of mine contains the following sentence:
>
> "You fired all *three* of them?!"
>
>
>
Trouble is, I'm not sure I've ever seen a novel that used a question mark and an exclamation point together - it's something I normally see in comic strips and the like. **Is using the two punctuation marks together on... | [
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"text": "The combination \"?!\" has been in common usage enough that the interrobang (‽) was suggested as a punctuati... | 2019/08/16 | [
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47,374 | I'm writing a story about a little girl who got bit by an unknown snake species and is being treated for it. Out of the 3 snakebite victims, this little girl seems to have the best prognosis. Here is a summary of what happens in the second chapter of my story, where I introduce a foreign language speaking character.
#... | [
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"text": "Don't, under (almost) any circumstances write a Roman-script foreign language \"the way it i... | 2019/08/17 | [
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47,376 | I'm currently in the middle of writing several fantasy books and, even though I'm not done with any of them, I can't stop thinking about how my name will appear on my books once they are finished.
I remember reading somewhere that authors should go by names that are sort of related to their genre. I don't know if that... | [
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"text": "I don't think it matters. The only fantasy author I can think of who tweaked their name for remotely genre-related rea... | 2019/08/17 | [
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47,384 | I was thinking about writing a short story depicting a real event that took place over 2000 years ago. I'm not using any real person, but I am using the place and it's surroundings. I've seen plenty of books, movies and songs being about the event, but wanted to be 100% sure that I'm not breaking any laws regarding it. | [
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"text": "No one owns a copyright or trademark on historical events, especially ones that happened way before copyright... | 2019/08/17 | [
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47,386 | Do authors still get paid royalties for their old works? For example, If I decided to buy a copy of the "Odessa File" by Frederick Forsyth or "Kini and Obek" by Jeffery Archer, do the authors get paid royalties for them?
Another example would be me buying the Hijrp Potfeq series for my kid, maybe 10-15 years down the ... | [
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"text": "In the US, an author holds the copyright to his work for all his life, and his heirs hold it ... | 2019/08/18 | [
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47,393 | I find myself often being irritated at elements in situations that help characters succeed, elements which are also highly unlikely or even illogical. But often, if not more, I find myself angered by things that too inconvenient. Improbably inconvenient. But am I alone on this? Is it a pedantic irritation or is unlikel... | [
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"text": "The twin tropes you are referring to are [Deus ex Machina](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki... | 2019/08/18 | [
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47,401 | I think I read somewhere that when writing, you shouldn't describe characters by their characteristics
i.e.
>
> The tall man walked across the room
>
>
>
Is this true? Maybe I'm misremembering | [
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"text": "This reads completely normal to me and I don't really see anything wrong with it. \n\nIf \"tall\" is what identi... | 2019/08/19 | [
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47,412 | I admire the writing style of many other writers and I try to emulate them, but most of the time it doesn't turn out how I want it to. Is this because it's not uniquely my own style, but rather forcing myself to write similar as authors that I admire? | [
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"text": "Neil Gaiman writes:\n\n> \n> Don't worry about trying to develop a style. Style is what you ... | 2019/08/19 | [
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47,418 | I’m having issues because while I’m in the process of writing I think my style has enough length to it, but when I go back and read my work it feels extremely fast. A scene I expected to take me fifteen minutes to read is over as soon as it started. Especially with dialogue. I enjoy writing dialogue so much—- when I he... | [
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"text": "You say that in your head there are pauses in the dialogue, but in the text they just aren't... | 2019/08/19 | [
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47,422 | Lately I've been thinking that I don't know of a single novel that has illustrations in it. I've tried finding out the reason why, and came across an [article published in The Guardian in 2011](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/13/illustrations-fiction-novels), but it didn't arrive to any conclusions or provid... | [
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"text": "There are exceptions to the \"no illustrations\" trend. For example, Susanna Clarke's *Jonath... | 2019/08/19 | [
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47,427 | Beginner here. So, I have tons of ideas for a novel, and in fact I want to write one (even a series), but I'm struggling a lot in actually starting writing the story. I have ideas for characters and their personalities, conflicts, etc.
But I don't feel very motivated or secure in putting my ideas into the paper and st... | [
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"text": "Something that has helped me is to have a list of the chapters of the novel with a short summary of each one. Don't w... | 2019/08/20 | [
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47,445 | I'm interested in starting a pleasure project: a fantasy story, along the lines of a witch delivering a prophecy to a king about a dangerous and deceitful foe who will overthrow him, and the king enlists three other witches to seek out and destroy this foe.
I want to draw on traditional, arguably "cliché" (?) fantasy... | [
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"text": "This is a great question. **I think being aware of the problem is a good first step**. If you really do want to... | 2019/08/20 | [
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47,447 | How do we distinguish how a character pronounces a word and how it is spelled in a dialogue? For example, some people pronounce words in a different way than they should, how do you show that in a dialogue? Is there a way to do this properly? Is there a standard way?
For example:
>
> "I don't want to buy Ae-pple pro... | [
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47,465 | I paid an illustrator to do the art for my picture book and I now own the artwork. Am I then allowed to submit to agents as an author/illustrator? How does this work? | [
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"text": "Not a lawyer.\n\nYou paid an illustrator to provide artwork for your book. You (supposedly) ... | 2019/08/21 | [
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47,474 | My character has super-senses, so anything that we feel, see, hear, etc. are heightened for him. So much so that when a flash bomb is set a few meters from him, he is greatly affected by this.
Symptoms are loss of balance (b/c it affects the ears), a ringing? sound, and only seeing white for about 5 seconds and then... | [
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"text": "Related writing.SE literature:\n\n* [Effective techniques for describing pain](https://writing.stackexchange.com/quest... | 2019/08/21 | [
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47,490 | My main character is up against the world, or, rather, the world and reality are up against her. A good story is in some ways defined by its villain. 1984 personifies its villain by adding a representative of the oppressor, but in my story, there can be no such person.
With this in mind, can I build out the world and... | [
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"text": "It's been said that \"a good villain has something to prove\". If the world is the villain from the protagonist's persp... | 2019/08/22 | [
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47,491 | I love creating characters, and for me it’s been the joy of writing for however long I’ve been doing it. I have maybe three or four unfinished projects which house characters whom I love, and they’re like little pieces of me and those around me. (I’m working hard to finish one of these in particular)
Recently I got an... | [
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"text": "It has happened to me. But I went with it. I made the characters really unlikeable. \nI think I was in an an... | 2019/08/22 | [
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47,507 | I’m confused about point of view. In my story—so far—I only reveal to the reader what the main character, a child, can see/hear. Not often, but at times, I write that the child “wondered” or he “noticed” or “they looked to him like”… In these cases I would have to be in the child’s head to know these things (maybe “not... | [
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"text": "When you present the story as a character experiences it, it's third person limited, or third person subject... | 2019/08/22 | [
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47,512 | Sometimes a situation will suit a well known author's quote and I do like expressions. Someone joked that I had no shame in paraphrasing. Is this poor form and if so why? | [
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"text": "If someone recognized it as a paraphrase, I’d call it a *[literary allusion](https://www.britannica.com/art/allu... | 2019/08/22 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/47512",
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47,523 | I want people to understand what I write, but I do not want to use conventions such as plot or dialogue to tell a story.
Without a plot I have been criticized of not having written a story, but something that does not make sense. I do not use much dialogue in the stories, but there are characters in the story and the... | [
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"text": "A knowledgeable Writing.SE user once said you could write fifty thousand times the word 'meow' and call it a novel. Su... | 2019/08/22 | [
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47,544 | I'm starting a new fantasy story, and although I had a loose idea of plot, I began sculpting my characters before writing anything. Creating images of them in my head, developing their personalities, mapping out their interpersonal relationships, and, my personal favorite, searching for people on Google images who look... | [
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"text": "**I believe you start with both of them together.** \n\nA young warrior overthrows an oppressive regime. \n\nA fae... | 2019/08/24 | [
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47,546 | I am writing a visual novel and use a fictional country in "real-world" setting. Some cases have been bothering me and I'm not sure if it's legal to write this because it might be insulting(?):
1. To place my country I had to cut a part of China, so it is located between Russia, Mongolia and China.
2. I mention that ... | [
{
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"text": "Alternative history is a mainstay of speculative fiction. Redrawing countries' borders is very often a part of that. So... | 2019/08/24 | [
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47,559 | I am writing a book that is set in England, but because I would get the book published in America I don't know what terminology to use. My main character is in the equivalent of 7th grade but in England they would call it Year 8, which might be confusing to my directed audience. Should I stick with American terminology... | [
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"text": "If you're writing for an American audience, with an American publisher, then use an American dialect for your narration... | 2019/08/25 | [
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47,561 | When discussing the life story (fictional/non-fictional) of an inanimate object (like a brick not AI), is it appropriate to claim this endeavor as an autobiography of an inanimate object, when it seems like a first-person perspective of the same? | [
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"text": "You can claim it is anything you want; you are writing a fantasy about an inanimate object that can cogitate, observ... | 2019/08/26 | [
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47,564 | Recently we have seen multiple questions on various aspects of political correctness. They have sparked some measure of disagreement, which is what I wanted to examine here.
**To what extent should we fear giving offense with what we write? To what extent should we, as writers, actively seek not to give offense?**
Ob... | [
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"text": "First, I would argue for the right to make mistakes\n---------------------------------------... | 2019/08/26 | [
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47,573 | Basically I’m wondering whether it’s totally weird or if people wouldn’t give much thought to it. I’ll use Zootopia as an example. If the main characters (a fox and a rabbit) were in a relationship, would that be really off putting? | [
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"text": "I think people would not give much thought to it, particularly if no **other** characters gave much thought to it.\n... | 2019/08/26 | [
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47,580 | I'm writing for an amnesiac protagonist, in spite of the fact that I feel amnesia in fiction is usually a bad cliché used to avoid some of the background work of creating a character's family, friends, hometown, career, etc. Ideally, I'd like to hear an answer from someone who has written an amnesiac character before, ... | [
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"text": "How to make a non-cliche amnesia MC story? \n\nIt is not possible.\n\nThe very genre itself its cliche\n... | 2019/08/26 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/47580",
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47,594 | If you look up the exact definition for "pyromancy" or "necromancy" they refer to divination using fire and the dead, respectively.
However, if you were to ask a layperson what those words mean, they would simply say "fire magic" and "death magic".
I'm considering including these magics in my books. Except, now that ... | [
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"text": "These terms are very often used to mean magic, and I've never before encountered anybody discussing the anci... | 2019/08/27 | [
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47,596 | My main source of research about storytelling/screenwriting/how-to-write-a-book manual is [1]. But, the definition of "beat" given by [1] maybe can causing me some confusion.
In [1] we have a definition about what is an event and what is a beat.
A event is something which, naively speaking, is both a point of life's ... | [
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"text": "I have never heard of McKee's definition of \"beat.\" I have only heard of and use the filmmaking def... | 2019/08/27 | [
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47,604 | I've heard that in order to write a non-fiction book I need to write notes and then put them together to make a book, but I'm writing notes from possible 4 completely different books, so when should I start turning these notes into a book?
Should I be in a hurry and write as soon as possible, even with poor quality? I... | [
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"text": "It seems to me you need to answer some more basic questions first. What do you want to write about? Why do y... | 2019/08/27 | [
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47,615 | Is having elaborate metaphors a bad thing in a short story (for the purposes of the story being accepted by a magazine)? How can I know if my metaphors are too elaborate? | [
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"text": "Most of your metaphors do seem a bit confusing. Your first example compares parallel rays of sunlight to entra... | 2019/08/28 | [
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47,617 | Characters (and people) get angry at all sorts of things that might not make sense to the outside observer: Marny MsDfy and the word "chicken," words that are terrible slurs to one population but totally normal to others, overreactions due to mental illnesses, etc.
I feel like I have a relatively good grasp of how to ... | [
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"text": "Well, you can try using short words to display bouts of rage, using really simple words in the speech with a s... | 2019/08/28 | [
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47,619 | Is it possible to introduce evil characters (be identified as evil) before the action (the crimes committed by the characters) takes place? | [
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"text": "Happens all the time. It's a staple in many a superhero movie where the villain is typically motivated by pure means ... | 2019/08/28 | [
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47,623 | I used the name *Primus and Primes* for my book and these are from the transformers universe. My concept is totally different. Is this a copyright infringement?
I introduced a secret society named "The Primus" in my book. In the transformers universe, Primus is the entity that created Autobots.
In my book I also incl... | [
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"text": "'Primus' means 'first' in Latin. **Just as you cannot copyright the word 'first', you cannot... | 2019/08/28 | [
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47,624 | In the ever swinging tone of a novel, one may wish to show a moment of peace amidst all the chaos. In my novel it happens a few times, most notably when characters are travelling across vast natural landscapes, or when they gaze at the stars at night.
Quite often, during a revision, I mark all these passages for delet... | [
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"text": "You seem to suggest that a paragraph that has no other function whatsoever within the narrative, beyond provi... | 2019/08/28 | [
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47,625 | I'm planning out a long series (more than five books as is). It's very optimistic, I know. But I'm just wondering:
Would it be better to plan out my series as a trilogy, leaving room to expand if the series is successful?
I feel like publishers would regard trilogies as a safer bet than a long-winded series, but the... | [
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"text": "> \n> I feel like publishers would regard trilogies as a safer bet than a long-winded series.\n> \n> \n> \n\nBut the... | 2019/08/28 | [
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47,634 | I feel there is a common audience trend in favoring the side characters more than the MC. And I believe "literary science" backs that up, in regards to character focus. That even though the MC's character and development is very good, it is harmed a little by the great focus on them, due to the audience becoming too fa... | [
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"text": "I doubt that its always the case. Personally, I think it depends upon the audience, that what characteristics th... | 2019/08/28 | [
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47,655 | This question is about hiding from the reader the fact that I am skipping some steps. Worse, perhaps, I don't want to show them, and I may have no clue or intention of figuring out how these steps should go: I simply want to go from scene A to scene B, jumping over how that could possibly happen.
Some examples, to giv... | [
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"text": "How did Jack Fdinrof escape that island he got stranded on? \"Sea turtles\". He escaped *som... | 2019/08/28 | [
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47,659 | How does a person get an entry on Britannica, Encyclopedia.com etc. ? The person has a Wikipedia page and news references. Thanks! | [
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"text": "Like @celtschk says in a comment, traditional encyclopedias like Britannica have professiona... | 2019/08/29 | [
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47,664 | I've just started noticing this word a lot in books. Something about it rubs me the wrong way. For example, I read a book where the following happened
>
> I stumbled to the ground and hit my head. I got back up. The walls and floors **seem**ed to be moving
>
>
>
That struck me as wrong; because since the characte... | [
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"text": "> \n> That struck me as wrong; because since the character is experiencing it, for them the walls don't seem to be ... | 2019/08/29 | [
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47,668 | Every piece of writer's advice I see will include something about "building a following" online, so that a publisher will be more likely to pick you up. The problem is, I don't have any idea how to do this! Besides that, I don't really have the time, what with working a full-time job and fitting writing in
Is a "platf... | [
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"text": "If you want to self-publish, then probably you do need a site.\n\nIf you intend to find an agent that finds you a p... | 2019/08/29 | [
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47,672 | I am writing a story in which at some point two characters with the same name interact each other. I can't use their last name to differentiate because it's necessary for them to have no last name. There will also be no mention of the physical appearance of those characters, so, I can't use terms such as "Tall Zotn" an... | [
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"text": "We can change the writing styles. \nFor Eg. if we are talking about first person (with same name as second ) ... | 2019/08/29 | [
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47,676 | For example, let’s say the main plot is that the characters are on a quest to go find something. Can an author spend three scenes in a row detailing what happens on their journey there, even if the only way the plot is moving forwards is by the implication that they’re moving in that direction? What if they spend three... | [
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"text": "You might want to break up the three scenes with something else, but generally speaking, yes, it's ok... | 2019/08/29 | [
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47,695 | A story I am currently working on contains a scene where a figure with a certain character quite unexpectedly has a change of heart, and I am having difficulty finding a way of smoothing the transition.
Detailed description
--------------------
The transformation of the character (hereto referred to as A) could be re... | [
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"text": "Always try, at least for yourself, to give motivations to any character for behaving a certain way. \n\nWhy is A t... | 2019/08/30 | [
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47,711 | Imagine a fantasy hero with a 'time reset' ability like the protagonists of *Groundhog Day* or *Edge of Tomorrow*: they can 'rewind time' up to a few hours, resetting their own physical state and the rest of reality to whatever it/they were doing previously while preserving their memory of events, allowing the future t... | [
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"text": "Psychopathy is characterised by persistent antisocial behaviour, impaired empathy and remors... | 2019/08/30 | [
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47,724 | I am currently writing an ongoing comic series, along with a co-author. Some of the characters in the book were created by me, some by the co-author, and some by third parties. All characters in this discussion were created for this series and are not licensed from another property.
The publisher's contract is with me... | [
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47,729 | At one point in my story, the characters are addressed by a god. In the ensuing dialogue, this god has a more archaic way of speaking, but even so, I'm wondering if it might be a good idea to visually distinguish the god's speech from the other characters' speech. I think part of the reason is that since this is essent... | [
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"text": "Visually distinguishing a character's dialogue is not a bad idea. Sir Terry Pratchett used t... | 2019/08/31 | [
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47,733 | Of course developing a character is quite an intimate process. But still, like a story, you can in fact have some tools that give you some sort of axiomatic path on "how-to".
There is a TV writer named Shonda Rhimes. She has an interesting, but confusing, point of view about how she created a particular character. She... | [
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"text": "This makes sense to me because my characters act in very similar ways.\n------------------------------------------------... | 2019/08/31 | [
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47,735 | **Note:** This question deals exclusively with personal stakes (what the character could lose). It does not deal with public stakes (what the world of the novel could lose).
---
In my mind, there are two levels of stakes (not to be confused with the *kinds* of stakes): basic and deep.
**Example:** In the first sea... | [
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"text": "There is a scene in Naomi Novik's *Spinning Silver* which, I believe, holds the answer to yo... | 2019/08/31 | [
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47,738 | Following the answer of @Cyn and my comment (on [Doubt about a particular point of view on how to do character creation](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/47733/doubt-about-a-particular-point-of-view-on-how-to-do-character-creation) ): I would like to know more about how to "know" more about a true alived cha... | [
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"text": "Your character takes an action. It all happens in your imagination.\n\nWell, imagine then: c... | 2019/08/31 | [
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47,742 | I am writing a book mostly about the history of my local airport. This will include the changes from the earliest airlines and airports til today. What I want to know, for example, I write about the change in food they were serving to include some of my memories about airline food I had or would that be considered a pe... | [
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"text": "The short answer is yes, you can include this type of material. But it really depends on your audience and the scope of... | 2019/09/01 | [
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47,748 | I want to say that the author uses Character A's "character development" to explore Character B.
In other words, the author builds on the personality of A to exemplify the nature of B.
What is another word that replaces "character development" in the context above? | [
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47,756 | Sometimes, I have trouble coming up with a way to end a description properly, especially one that's at the very end of a chapter. What are some of the things you can do, especially when the description just describes a set of actions taken by a character? Is there a way of doing this without going inside the head of th... | [
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"text": "The problem with your description doesn't seem to be the word count, but a lack of conflict. Sesquipedalias has the righ... | 2019/09/02 | [
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47,757 | I wrote a dialogue, but I am not sure if it sounds natural. I try to keep dialogue super simple so that it doesn't feel unnatural, but aside from that, I am not sure if there's any golden rule I can follow to make sure the dialogue I write doesn't sound off.
Here's a small excerpt of what I wrote recently.
>
> ...
>... | [
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47,768 | Often while writing a software requirement/change-request documentation, I need to include the quoted requirements descriptively, the impacted modules, the changes provided both in UI and in logic. While writing this out, the document often tends to get big (mostly 1000-4000 words - 5 to 7 pages of MS word). I make sur... | [
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"text": "It sounds like there may be more than one audience for your documentation, and the struggle you're having is trying to ... | 2019/09/02 | [
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47,771 | Losely related with my latest question: [Should one invest in a professional editor before querying?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/47770/should-one-invest-in-a-professional-editor-before-querying)
I've finished - not without sweat - my second draft. While I'm satisfied with the overall result, I can't s... | [
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"text": "At this point you need one of two things, either time or someone you trust to tell you the truth. \n\nThe problem with ... | 2019/09/02 | [
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47,777 | I am writing on my thesis, containing a lot of implementations. Due to readability, I locate all my source code in the Appendix. Is there a style guide on how to name these sections in the Appendix?
Currently, my approach is to structure them like this:
```
A. General Methods
A.1. def foo
A.2. def bar
... | [
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47,784 | For example:
>
> I sensed as if he became sad from the way he spoke after telling him
> that I would go with her.
>
>
> | [
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"text": "This is a question of show vs tell.\n\nIt's easy to say that he became sad, but if you write it like this it a... | 2019/09/02 | [
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47,791 | It's not so much that I dislike my real name, but I have a few issues that make me uncomfortable with using it.
This is mainly due to the fact that it's quite unique, and while that is an advantage, it also means that it doesn't take long for people to find all of my comments, interests, group activity, forum particip... | [
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"text": "Picking an Alias, also for Picking a Character Name\n===================================================\n\nOne app... | 2019/09/03 | [
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47,804 | I'm writing a story in English but I'm not a native. I’m a Brazilian Portuguese speaker.
It bothers me how repetitive and ambiguous pronouns can be. In my language we can use the equivalent to ‘this one’ instead of he/she/it etc. It’s less usual, but still sounds natural. But I don’t know how it sounds to a native Eng... | [
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"text": "There is a distinct use of \"this one\" in English which is a matter of usage rather than grammar. It is used by one pe... | 2019/09/03 | [
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47,808 | I'm just trying to work around the whole "Adverbs are the devil" rule. Is there any difference between these two lines in regards to writing quality:
>
> He smiled patronisingly at them
>
>
>
And
>
> He had a patronising smile on his face
>
>
>
Is the second option better than the first one? | [
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"text": "Well to start with, \"Adverbs are the devil\" is not a rule. It is not even correct. Adverbs are a perfectly peaceable ... | 2019/09/03 | [
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47,823 | I’m making a linear visual novel with partial interactivity that allows the player to influence small portions of the story, but I just want to know how one goes about drafting something like that. The interactivity feature allows you to build a relationship with some characters, this is what can change different parts... | [
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"text": "Look at images of “decision trees.” This might help you in terms of structure, because you can extrapolate from dif... | 2019/09/05 | [
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47,826 | I have three variations of the same storyline and cannot decide which one I want to write:
1. erotic story turning dark and dangerous
A young adult man and woman fall in love. It is the woman's first time to have sex, and the narrative focusses on the sexual feelings and desires of the protagonists. As the couple dis... | [
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"text": "> \n> My question is which variation would be more attractive to agents, publishers, and the reading pub... | 2019/09/05 | [
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47,827 | Most erotica today is written by and for women, and bestselling erotica is narrated from a female point of view. The "male pornographic gaze" that sexualizes the female body has been considered offensive by the predominant culture and mostly eradicated from contemporary mainstream literature. But men still lust over fe... | [
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"text": "Erotica is not a genre I read, but the lusting male gaze in some fantasy and sci-fi - I canno... | 2019/09/05 | [
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47,833 | How can I make a side character's tangibility open to interpretations so the audience is unsure if she's even real?
My short story is about identity. My main character is being pressured by a friend to do something. I don't want to reveal anything to the audience, but I want to have like clues that could suggest that ... | [
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"text": "I did this once in a novel-length story. After the first two appearences my wife said that she has a strange f... | 2019/09/05 | [
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47,840 | In [this answer](https://writing.stackexchange.com/a/47836/16226), Amaheor makes the case for happy endings based on their far greater popularity compared to unhappy endings.
This leads me to wonder, what exactly makes an ending "happy"?
Before I go further, though, let me say that talking about a "satisfactory" endi... | [
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"text": "I'm by no means an expert, so take this answer as opinion. But here's my take all the same.\n\nThe way I view this ... | 2019/09/05 | [
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47,849 | I've recently started getting into horror lately and trying to learn how all of the genre works so that maybe I myself can write good horror. But there's been one thing on my mind that's been bothering me a lot about horror. I don't know that while writing horror, what's going way too far and what's crossing the line.
... | [
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"text": "I think you need to make a distinction between horror, which runs largely on anticipation (like every other genre) and ... | 2019/09/05 | [
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47,852 | Is there a better way to introduce acronyms through a dialogue? One way of doing it, is to mention what the acronym stands for at the beginning and then use the acronym afterward, but that's a bit weird and unnatural, because people won't say "National Aeronautics and Space Administration" they will say "NASA", so what... | [
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"text": "In this particular case, don't, because the term NASA is more well known than its expansion. Sometimes acronyms evolve i... | 2019/09/05 | [
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47,858 | I’m a beginner writer planning on learning how to write webcomics. My main one is an adventure/fantasy webcomic and the other is a card battle webcomic (I draw a lot of inspiration from anime and manga if you couldn’t tell).
How do I begin to learn more about writing (and drawing) this genre, and how to analyze stori... | [
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47,863 | So, let's say the main characters enter a building, a really big laboratory of sorts. They don't know what was being worked on here, because no one is still there, it's been abandoned recently. But for the plot to move on, they need at least a basic grasp of what was studied here, and the reader should get some backgro... | [
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"text": "I don't know if \"best practices\" are really a thing for writing, but I use the epigraph on top of every chapter... | 2019/09/06 | [
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47,872 | Is there a "right" way to interpret a novel? If so, how do we make sure our novel is interpreted correctly? I have been told that there's no way of interpreting the true meaning of a book written by an author, because we don't know the intent they had. So, is there a standard way of making sure a book is interpreted co... | [
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"text": "This notion that a novel has a meaning that we can ferret out and interpret has been a staple of English teachers for de... | 2019/09/07 | [
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47,873 | In the Bible, the apple is a symbol for knowledge, immortality, temptation, the fall of man and sin. The book itself gave the apple a symbolic meaning. How can you as an author give an object like the apple your own meaning? And how do you make sure that your readers interpret the apple as having your own particular me... | [
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"text": "The short answer is that you can't. Symbolism is really a property of a culture, not an individual work. Symbols are a ... | 2019/09/07 | [
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47,886 | I want to do a story revolving around the inverse of the Christian tale in the bible. In it, the savior sent by God is tempted by the adversary, similar to how Jisis is tempted by the devil in the desert. However, he ultimately succumbs to his human weaknesses and betrays his purpose, becoming subservient to this devil... | [
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"text": "> \n> How should this fall from grace be represented and done better?\n> \n> \n> \n\n\"Better\" is a sub... | 2019/09/08 | [
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47,890 | So, I finally began writing my sixtieth or so first draft. And I noticed a small thing:
>
> As sunset came the sky became a river of orange and gold. Maybe like a lava stream? Gyvaris might have been a red dragon, but as embarrassing it was, he never saw actual lava in his life. The only time he heard about it was fr... | [
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47,894 | I'm writing a story which requires frequent switching between languages, sometimes in the same sentence.
I thought about writing the foreign language in italics, but the problem is that I already use italics for emphasis, so it's not consistent and would be confusing. Underline looks strange and color is not possible.... | [
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"text": "Maybe enclose the words in some other punctuation?\n\nBrackets:\n\n> \n> \"Wow! You [finally listened... | 2019/09/08 | [
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47,898 | In the first discussion of the concept of "plot" given by [1] I, maybe, understood two different, but complementary, concepts of plot.
Mckee gives us a definition of Plot as:
>
> To PLOT mean to navigate through the dangerous terrain of story and when confronted by a dozen branching possibilities to choose the corre... | [
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47,903 | Suppose I'm a local publisher. If I want to translate a book, print it and sell translated copies, how much should I propose to pay to the copyright holder? Is there some acceptable percentage of book price at Amazon to start with?
Here is an example: Suppose there is a book called *How to Jump High* which I would lik... | [
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47,908 | There is a problem as stories progress (especially in never-ending web novels) where the cast of characters keep growing. Some webnovels I follow are in the hundreds!
Is there a technique for authors to keep track of their cast of characters? | [
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47,912 | If I'm going to face down a dragon, Mob boss, evil corporation, or a demon from the 7 circles of hell or dystopian dictator, etc, it's not going to be to rescue my buddy Herxeck, or cousin Dommy. The best they are going to get are my harsh words and heavy disapproval muttered under my breath as I go into hiding. But if... | [
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"text": "The kinds of criticisms you are encountering are not aimed against the concept of the hero having a love inter... | 2019/09/09 | [
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47,925 | [Metk mentioned in his answer](https://writing.stackexchange.com/a/47928/32946) that plotholes aren't usually the end of the world, and that I shouldn't sacrifice too much of the story and the characters for the sake of logic.
But there's a breaking point where everyone goes "That makes no sense!"
The other is with a... | [
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"text": "The technical name for what you're describing is a \"travesty.\" Often mistaken for parody, the travesty is a ... | 2019/09/09 | [
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47,941 | I have an idea for an anti-heroic sci-fi character whose character arc runs from spoilt rich girl, to a refugee in the rubble of human civilisation after an alien invasion, to crewmember and then captain of a pirate spacecraft, and ultimately to empress of all mankind.
Running through all of this, I have the knowledge... | [
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"text": "To be honest, your question has me scratching my head a little. You've described your character as a per... | 2019/09/11 | [
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47,955 | Should you only use colons and full stops in dialogues? I thought about using a semi-colon in one of my dialogues, but I had second thought about it, because when we talk, we don't really differentiate semi-colons from colons, so it almost in a way nonsensical to use semi-colons in dialogues. What do most authors tend ... | [
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"text": "Some people have some sort of dislike for semicolons. See [The Good, the Bad and the Semicolo... | 2019/09/12 | [
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47,961 | Part of the character arc for my main character from [Can I conceal an antihero's insanity - and should I?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/q/47941/40449) is that she is a sociopath, prepared to do things that normal people would not. Part of her story arc is that while under-age (she's between 14 and 15 years old at... | [
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"text": "Tell it in narration.\n---------------------\n\nYou have plenty of opportunity to show this character's social patholog... | 2019/09/12 | [
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47,965 | I have only been able to find lined notebooks with big spacing between the lines (8mm). I would like to have very tiny spacing (3 or even 2mm). I haven't been able to find them.
Also, I'd like to design my own notebooks with custom layout, so basically I'd like to be able to get a custom notebook with an arbitrary gre... | [
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"text": "I had a friend in University who wanted this and he did it using Publisher (which Microsoft will give for free to ... | 2019/09/12 | [
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47,979 | As much as I would like it, both in Worldbuilding and Writing, not every action is logical or "right".
There are two types of this:
**Imperfect information:** The character(s) lack vital information, making their choices a gamble.
**Characters being plain stupid:** The classic case when you look back and ask: "Wha... | [
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"text": "You can't do just \"dumb.\" You can write a mentally impaired character, like Sonnyro in \"Of Mice and Men,\" that ... | 2019/09/12 | [
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47,999 | A is a special snowflake, though for all the wrong reasons. You see, he was born with a special ability that allowed him to see premonitions of his and his loved ones' future in the form of still images. Of course, future here isn't immutable, and premonitions change as new information comes in.
While the ability is i... | [
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"text": "A character has to have an arc and be seen to move along that arc. You can't show the reader the same thing they have s... | 2019/09/15 | [
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48,003 | I am trying to write a non-fiction book about summarizing core computer science concepts. I plan to self publish this book through the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing program. My target audience includes
1. undergrad freshmen
2. business managers working in a tech industry but have little or no technical knowledge
3.... | [
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"text": "Different publishers will have different preferences about this. An academic press is likely to prefer a more academic ... | 2019/09/15 | [
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