qid int64 1 2.78M | question stringlengths 2 66.6k | answers list | date stringlengths 10 10 | metadata list |
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56,153 | I have a number of scenes in my story that involve two or more characters talking to each other about various issues, many of which wander into semi-philosophical discussion regarding some of the general themes of the story (e.g., the arguments you see between characters over life philosophies in manga/anime, some of the discussion of geopolitics in *Game of Thrones*, etc.) that also influence character development and relationships.
I have an outline for the story so I know the general gist of what is said and what happens in broad strokes. E.g., in one scene I know that one character says something that makes another upset and storm off, which is necessary to set things up for the next scene where I need the character to be alone and angry in order for something plot-important to happen. I know what the character's mindset is going into the situation, I know the very, very general idea of what is said, and I know how the character's mindset changes as a result of the conversation.
However, I am having a problem where I don't know what the character are specifically going to say to produce that result, or the arguments they are going to make. I have been working on this story idea for a decade now, and I remember what happened is I had some vague ideas about what specifically was said when I outlined the plot a decade ago, but since then I've forgotten what I intended to say (I've had issues with forgetting the dialogue of scenes *while I was trying to write enough notes down in the moment to not forget them*). It's the equivalent of knowing a scene summary but not the actual dialogue or points made.
So now I have this issue in that I don't know how to get my characters to make the point they are trying to make in this scene. They have very distinct voices, but for some reason getting them to actually say it coherently is hard (specifically because these are scenes that establish who they are as characters).
I'll use two scenes as examples, mostly because they involve the same characters (the male and female romantic leads of the story) and relate to the same issue.
* The first is the initial "meet cute" between the two romantic leads. The guy is distraught over a tragic, traumatic event in his life (which I do know exactly what it is but am not detailing here for copyright reasons), whereas the girl sees a stranger being upset and talks to him, talking him through the crisis and convincing him to pick himself back up. This is supposed to be one of the key moments in the story to show the reader they have chemistry and an emotional connection. However due to the plot (a star-crossed lovers story), the two of them have this meeting without either ever realizing who the other is (and that the girl just helped someone who is technically her greatest enemy), which is part of the dramatic irony of the scene.
* The second is a later scene between the two after their affiliations are revealed. The two are alone talking about something, the guy specifically feeling alone and unwanted, and the girl accidentally lets it slip that she feels the same way. This is the point at which the characters go from merely being interested in the other to actually having romantic feelings, and the point at which is becomes very apparent the two understand each other emotionally on some level. This leads into the characters gaining the motivation to take the actions necessary in the next scene.
As can be seen, I have an idea of what happens in these scenes and how it influences character development, but I cannot easily articulate what the characters say or the specific arguments they make. I know how they see the world and how the conversations affect their character development. This is a big problem because in some cases, like the above, these are really important scenes used to establish chemistry between characters, and without it their relationship feels plot-mandated rather than developing naturally. This isn't *only* the case with romantic scenes, but it's where the lack thereof is felt most strongly.
The closest I have been able to get is when I randomly have flashes of "oh, that would be an interesting point to make" and write it down, but ultimately that results in a rather incoherent argument that doesn't seem to have a point, and even *worse* does not build the emotional chemistry I am trying to create.
Given this, **what does one do when they know the general gist of how a scene or a philosophical argument is supposed to go but cannot easily articulate what the characters precisely say?** | [
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"text": "Wait for Inspiration...\n-----------------------\n\n...but in the meanwhile, if you've been working on this project... | 2021/06/05 | [
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56,168 | Let's say you have multiple lines of events going on at once in a story. Call this a multithreaded plot. Is this common in stories? How would you represent this on paper before drafting? | [
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"text": "Multiple story lines are fairly common, and they are necessarily arising when multiple POV characters are separat... | 2021/06/07 | [
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56,172 | I haven’t supplied much description of my main character, mainly because it didn’t come up naturally. Her parents are described, so you can get a basic idea, fair skin, light eyes—but I never list any of her physical traits directly. But later, about six chapters in, another character mentions that she has red hair. Will this disrupt the mental image that readers have already formed of her? Should I mention it earlier, or not at all? | [
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"text": "Actually, a character usually gets by with very little physical description. If it's not necessary for the plot, ... | 2021/06/08 | [
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56,174 | I am writing a fight scene between two monsters. One is heavily armored but comparatively slower, whereas the other is a [Lightning Bruiser](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LightningBruiser): fast, tough, *and* powerful but compared to the first character is relatively frailer and quicker, even though by most standards they would be very tough and can definitely take hits well. A good comparison might be a video game or tabletop RPG analogy: both have very high amounts of "skill points" but the former put more of them in defense and less in speed, whereas the other is equal across the board. Another analogy might be Thanos versus Hulk in *Infinity War*: Hulk is bigger and has more raw power but Thanos has speed and skill, albeit in this case it's not a one-sided Worf effect as in *Infinity War*
There are several prior fight scenes between the big, armored character and a much frailer but more nimble opponent. I know how to write these: having the frailer fighter dart out of the way of the bigger character's blows and pepper them with hit and run attacks to avoid getting hit with the one good blow that would end the fight instantly. However, I've been having trouble writing fight scenes with a character who is more durable, but simply less so than the armored character. The issue with this is I am trying to establish in these scenes that the Lightning Bruiser is a credible threat who can fight with the armored character on equal footing to raise the stakes of the fight, rather than the armored character easily overpower.
The problem is that in practice the fight seems to play out exactly the same, the less armored Lightning Bruiser ducks and darts around the blows of the more armored one, even though in practice this character is a lot tougher and a lot more powerful than previous foes. The two characters are supposed to be on an equal footing, even if their "stat distribution" is different. This creates an issue in that it gives the impression to the reader that the Lightning Bruiser is not a threat to the armored character and is exactly the same as the previous foes they faced, and overall makes the fight scenes come across as repetitive or boring.
Given this, how do I write a fight scene such that it highlights that a Lightning Bruiser character is strong, fast, *and* tough, and that this character presents a legitimate threat to the armored one that can fight them on equal footing. | [
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56,187 | Aside anagrams, what are some other means to hide the true identity of an object or person? Anagrams are used to hide symbolisms and allegories throughout a movie, novel. What are some other means of achieving the same thing? | [
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"text": "On method to use is changing the emphasis of pronunciation which can lead to a new spelling that obscures the actual nam... | 2021/06/10 | [
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56,207 | I am just another person who writes poems to vent out emotions. I discovered that the amount of emotions that I feel my poem has **during the time of writing**, slowly evaporates away. When I re-read it after some days, the poem just reduces to a dry and incoherent collection of sentences.
Have any other emotional poets in this community felt the same?
If yes, how do you deal with this volatility of emotions? | [
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56,212 | Should there be a comma before "and" in this sentence?
>
> I look forward to visiting with you and thank you for your consideration.
>
>
> | [
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"text": "**That depends what you are trying to say:**\n\n1. \"I look forward to visiting with you\" and \"I thank you fo... | 2021/06/14 | [
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56,215 | I have a fantasy story in which the lead character is designed as your typical bland everyman protagonist whose purpose is to give the reader someone to relate to and ask questions about the fantastical elements of the world to allow the reader to go through the journey of discovering the supernatural elements of the world along with the main character. However, while the character is initially meant to *come off* as a boring everyman for the reader to relate to, they are intended to gradually shed off their generic status with more unique traits as the reader feels more comfortable with the setting.
One of these aspects is intelligence. All of the other lead characters in the story come off as highly intelligent and scientifically minded, and it feels very awkward to me that the main character comes off as "the one dumb one" because they are shackled to the role of being the "generic everyman with straight B grades" to be relatable to the average reader. This is even worse considering that the character in question is Qaniqo, which potentially sends off unfortunate implications that are the exact opposite of my intent.
Something I liked the idea of is that it's very strongly implied that the character is actually of above-average intelligence and while the character was an average student in grade school, this was more because they never felt the motivation to apply themselves and felt demoralized and overshadowed by their highly intelligent older sibling (who *is* Latina and high-achieving, and given the two are siblings it makes sense that they would both be smart). Thus, the character seems like an everyman but actually isn't.
My question is: **how to I show to the reader that a character is highly intelligent when they aren't particularly academically inclined or "book-smart"?** They also aren't super street smart in the way the term is also used, given they've lived a somewhat sheltered life in a safe neighborhood before being thrown into the plot, so that easy solution isn't really doable for me. | [
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"text": "Some possibilities/ideas you can tinker with:\n\n1. Give your character hobbies or attributes that are unique to w... | 2021/06/14 | [
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56,216 | I have a protagonist who is biracial (mixed-race Caucasian-east Asian ancestry) living in the United States. I have a good idea of what their face and appearance looks like; they’re the kind of person I’ve heard real-life mixed-race people of white-Asian descent describe as “Schrodinger’s Asian”: white people think they look white and Asian people think they look Asian, and depending on how the character does things like style their hair they can either look *really* white or *really* Asian, even to the same person.
My concern is how do I convey to the audience that the character is biracial? This is a particular issue because the character has an easy time “passing” as white, and thus it’s not likely that the other characters would notice. Contrast this with other potential mixed-race combinations, where it is easier to signal they are biracial by putting in a brief mention of skin color, which is something that is easy to mention in a description of a character. It’s honestly really, really hard to convey that someone is Asian or mixed-race with Asian ancestry without sounding like a 20th century phrenologist, and most human beings don’t speak that way when describing people’s looks. I find it hard to even describe someone who is full Asian without it sounding very strange and non-conversational. The closest I could think of is when there is a character that is supposed to be a very light-skinned Latino/Latina, and the writers pepper in Spanish into their dialogue to show that they are Latino/Latina.
Additionally, the character is an amnesiac runaway, so I cannot easily do things like show their non-white relatives, have them describe experiences relating to a specific east Asian culture, have them offhandedly use phrases in another language, or even use their first or last name to show that they are biracial. E.g., Anne Boonchuy from *Amphibia* is Thai-American, and this is conveyed to the audience both through her last name and from her mentioning trips her parents took her on to visit family in Thailand. If this were a visual adaptation my character's biracial ancestry would be pretty clear, but this work is in a written format.
The main reason this is of concern to me is that if my story ever gets popular enough to get visual depictions or even some kind of adaptation (yes, a pipe dream I know), given how people have been reacting to other fiction recently there may be a huge amount of backlash from people claiming that I “racewashed” the character as a diversity stunt. E.g., the whole “black Hermione” thing that popped up about a year ago, or what’s going on with Death in Neil Gaiman’s *Sandman* adaptation (both of which given the context and statements by the authors statements do kind of come off as shallow publicity stunts). When the truth is that no, I don’t care about “muh culture war” in either direction, I have a specific idea of how this character looks and this is the way that they’ve always appeared in my head. I’m more concerned with avoiding such a controversy in the first place, because I’ve noticed such a thing results in the controversy overshadowing the actual quality of the story, which is the part I actually *want* people to notice.
I know that there is [this question](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/43337/how-does-one-describe-somebody-who-is-bi-racial-to-someone-who-is-blind/43346#43346) on Writing SE, but I am not sure if I am asking the same thing as they are given the comments suggest that the question has been edited a large number of times. There are also some unique difficulties in specifically conveying a character is of mixed Asian-European ancestry in Western countries, given most people in these countries often don't see these individuals as anything other than white.
**Given this, how can I convey the character is biracial with mixed Caucasian-Asian ancestry in the text, particularly when it comes to establishing the character’s appearance in people’s minds?** | [
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56,230 | I am currently writing a non-fiction book which I intend to self publish. Regarding the citations and references, I intend to list them at the end of the book as endnotes and have decided to organise them by chapter which means the numbering will reset every chapter. E.g. Chapter 1: 1, 2, 3; Chapter 2: 1, 2, 3, etc.
So, what if I cite the same source multiple times across different chapters? Do I have to continue to cite them again in my endnotes under each chapter? | [
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"text": "Some authors, after citing a work once, will cite it the next few times abbreviated as \"Ibid., xx.\" See <https://li... | 2021/06/16 | [
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56,240 | I was writing a letter to my grandparents and realized that the entire *purpose* of my letter was what I was planning to include in a postscript (a scotch whisky recommendation), and that the body of my letter was more-or-less just polite chatter. It made me wonder some things:
1. Historically, were postscripts exclusively reserved for afterthoughts, or would letter-writers sometimes "disguise" their main motivation in the P.S. as I did?
2. Similarly, are postscripts often written using a different writing instrument as was used in the letter proper?
3. If it is seen that a postscript was written directly following the writing of the letter (or, even worse, **before the letter was even written**), is this considered rude, evasive, or otherwise unacceptable?
4. If, on the other hand, the postscript was written so *late* after the letter was written that the letter had already been sent in the mail, would it be acceptable to post a postscript entirely separately, or would one need to write a whole other letter to get across what was originally planned to be in the postscript? If it needs to be written in a separate letter, would that letter be given a postscriptum, or a post-postscriptum? | [
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56,267 | I know about the logical expression of 'if --- then', such as 'If the temperature reaches or exceeds a particular temperature, then the kettle will turn off.'
But what about situations that involve 'when'. For example - 'When we see the signal, then everyone can begin to raise their hands'.
I was 'googling' for information about this, but have found nothing so far about this. But I'm definitely interested to find out whether it is feasible to use 'when' followed by 'then'. Thanks all! | [
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56,273 | I am writing a collection of short stories. Each short story is written in 1st person present tense from that particular protagonist’s POV, telling us his/her own story through their actions and thoughts.
The collection reveals the story of one of the characters who is the protagonist of the entire collection. (However, she is not present in every story.) No one knows they have impacted her life or are presently impacting her life; they are just telling their stories. The protagonist doesn't know either until the end.
The stories are so linked I think it is a novel. My problem is that as readers we want something overall to hang on to and with each story changing who is telling story I'm not giving readers that 'hold.' Do I need a narrator or a thread throughout my stories? And if so, what character would that be? | [
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56,279 | I am writing a book and had nearly finished half of it and gave it to my friend to read, but she told me there is already a character in a book with the same first and last name. Would it be okay if I were to use it? Honestly, I didn't know and I hadn't even read the book.
Could I just give her a different middle name and still use the same first and last name? Or could I put 'all characters in this book are a work of fiction. Any coincidences with real-life are purely coincidental"?
The name is Macey McHenry (same as in the Gallagher Girls series). | [
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56,282 | A story of mine starts with a character disappearing in his radio studio while on air.
* Nobody else was in the building with him.
* A pair of sunglasses that he always kept in his shirt pocket was the only thing left behind.
* His last words were regarding strange noises and things falling off of shelves in the background.
* A loud, decidedly *non human* screech was heard seconds before the feed cut to static noise.
Now, how would authorities handle this? I don't know a thing about law or whatever but a lot of potential plot points are reliant on this LOL | [
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56,288 | In my professional life, I am a software engineer in a small agile company, and we use kanban boards to track the developers activities, like that:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RudhB.png)
Succumbing to my latest urge in creative writing, I found out that it is very efficient to have something like that for a novel. Here, the novel itself is a project, and protagonists, places and even time periods are "employees" that are assigned to work on a "ticket", be it an "epic" (chapter) or a "bug" (sudden idea I shouldn't forget to fix in a revision), or whatever else.
I googled for creative writing software, or actually whatever software that will have this functionality. Unfortunately, the existing kanban boards are either for a single user where roles can't be given, or for teams of **real people**, that is, people with **valid emails** which they use to confirm their participation on the project.
There are lots of different creative writing tools, but I was wondering if anyone knows about a software that allows for a kanban board with virtual employees in the sense I've just described.
Any suggestions? | [
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56,295 | When writing in Microsoft Word, is there a way to put carons and similar diacritics above Greek letters like in Latin? Simply inserting them seems to place them slightly to the side, either left or right of the actual letter, but I'd like to put them above. | [
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56,298 | When starting a series there is initially a lot of fertile ground for storytelling because the characters don't know each other very well and are still establishing an equilibrium. As a result, there is a lot of potential drama due to clashing personalities and the growing pains of the characters learning to understand each other. A very common character arc is having two or more characters initially starting off on a bad foot and learning to trust each other over the course of the story. For the audience, there is a vicarious thrill of the unknown in seeing how these two or more strangers bounce off each other and develop a relationship. This is the primary draw of virtually every buddy cop movie ever made, though it appears to a lesser degree in other works. Quite frequently the narrative payoff in the first book in a series is seeing these characters actually achieve some level of working relationship.
However, my question is what do you do for character development and drama in a series once the characters have settled into a personal dynamic and are no longer unfamiliar to one another? The relationship no longer has any conflict because they are familiar with each other's personality and quirks. It is possible to throw new characters into the mix to challenge them, but these relationships are often not as satisfying as the first entry in a series as the developing relationships are between a secondary and a primary character rather than between the primary characters. Other works have tried to keep the relationship between the lead characters unstable and ever-changing to maintain that feeling of the unknown. However, part of a friendship or romance is being able to trust one another, and if the relationship between two characters is constantly unpredictable and the two do not understand or cannot rely on one another it gives the impression the character never had a healthy relationship in the first place.
A good example of this is with the upcoming sequel to the recent *Venom* movie. Much of the drama for the original *Venom* movie came from the fear of the unknown, the symbiote was an unknown to Edwue and he didn't know if he could trust it. But in the trailer for the new movie the two are introduces as understanding one another and being familiar with one another's quirks. The movie seems to be trying to get around this by chucking Carnage at the protagonists and seeing what happens, rather than expanding Edwue and the symbiote's relationship.
Similarly, the *Men In Black* movies were based around the buddy-cop principle, albeit with the "cops" being alien police. However, by the end of the first movie J was no longer an inexperienced MIB agent and had established a rapport with K. This meant that the source of drama had evaporated and the sequels were unable to follow up on the success that the first was. They either tried to reverse the roles (as in the first half of *Men in Black II*) or do away with it (as in the second half of that movie), and got massively criticized for it as the "spark" of the original movie being gone.
My question is **how do you continue to develop characters' relationships with one another in later entries of a series once they have settled into an established dynamic and there isn't a ready source of conflict and drama from the characters being unfamiliar with each other and learning to deal with each others quirks?** | [
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"text": "Sure - Marriage Has No Conflict!\n--------------------------------\n\nIf you think that established relationships a... | 2021/06/23 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56298",
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56,299 | This question is very similar to [this one](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/56298/how-do-you-write-character-development-in-later-entries-of-a-series-after-relati), but I felt it was distinct enough that it was worth asking as a separate question.
In a lot of fantasy and science-fiction stories that are nominally set in the present, day, in the first volume or so there is almost invariably a plotline where the everyman main character is drawn into the supernatural world and is forced to adapt in some fashion. Quite often this takes the form of a typical Campbellian hero's journey. Getting dragged into the supernatural world is crossing the threshhold, learning about the world is challenges and temptation, they hit a low point as an abyss and then adapting to the supernatural world and/or returning to reality is the return. Through the process of this adaptation, we get ready-made conflict as well as a way to learn about the supernatural elements of the setting as the audience does.
However, **what does one do to continue to develop a character and keep them interesting after this initial arc plays out and they are familiar with the supernatural elements of the setting?** I realize a lot of this is dependent on the character and hence is highly subjective, but I am trying to figure out what to do to keep these characters interesting in a general sense. Once the character has played out the initial hero's journey cycle, their initial source of conflict is gone, and it's not clear how to develop a character from there. I.e., descending into the supernatural underbelly of the world isn't as thrilling the second time around as it is no longer the great unknown to the character and the character may have friends or allies from the first time around to help them out.
I've noticed in other urban fantasy works (e.g., *The Darren Shan Saga*, *Hijrp Potfeq*, *Gregor the Underlander*, etc.) almost invariably pivot into a "someone wants to take over the world" plot when they initially run out the warranty on the initial "character discovers the supernatural world" arc, or else they draw out the "adapting" arc over multiple books. However, a lot of times these kinds of arc feel hollow because unless the bad guy is written really, really well they don't actually further the character development of the protagonist, merely represent an end-boss threshold guardian to overcome. E.g., one of the big reasons why Umbridge was considered a more memorable villain than Voldemort, Umbridge was more of a personal challenge to Herrl whereas Voldemort was just a big, bad snake man who shot green lasers that Herrl had to defeat to end the conflict. Voldemort clearly hates Herrl but Herrl just seems resigned to fight Voldemort out of duty (as seen in the conversations at the end of *Order of the Phoenix*) and the antagonistic relationship produces little development in Herrl (especially compared to, say, Sirius' death). This kind of plotting swerve by itself seems like a bit of a problem because the pivot into the "bad guy wants to take over the world" plot doesn't seem to provoke more character growth in the protagonist, and the protagonist ends up stagnating outside of subplots. | [
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"text": "Change the setting.\n\n* Bring your newly acclimated character and his magical friends back to the real world ... | 2021/06/23 | [
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56,317 | I wasn’t sure where to put this question so forgive me if it isn’t in the right place. Anyway, I have a character who might go crazy, the thing is, I don’t want her to. She is arrested for treason and taken to a high security prison. Her cell has one small window but everything else is solid stone, including the door. She is chained as well to keep her from using her magic. She does get human interaction, guards bring her food twice a day but that is the only interaction she has and for at least the first week of her imprisonment they don’t speak to each other. She also is visited on occasion by her captor who plays with her a bit, telling her that he has her mom and her friends in prison too with the purpose of breaking her.
Before all this, she is mentally stable. She has a fair amount of mental strength and a good imagination but could she survive a month of this without going crazy?
Now most of my internet searches aren’t helpful. It seems like this kind of treatment could potentially qualify as torture. And it seems like a person would go crazy with no actual interaction. She does get interaction, so does that help? She also has a window, so there is a little bit of light, which would help with the passing of time, even though she can’t see out of it.
So, could she avoid going crazy? What are some of the side effects of this sort of treatment? | [
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"text": "No Problem. But...\n------------------\n\nYou might want to consider that sanity and madness is a spectrum, rather ... | 2021/06/26 | [
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56,318 | I often come up with an idea, write an outline, and sit down eagerly to write, but over and over again, this sense of doubt sets in. This affects me tremendously while I'm writing, because I believe my idea is not "good enough" and it won't turn out to be successful novel. Worst-case scenario I end up ditching the novel. Then I come up with a new idea and start the loop all over again.
Any advice to believe in your novel and persevere to the end without wallowing in your own self-doubt? I've already established in my mind that the first draft of any novel is going to suck, but I can't seem to get past the first draft without feeling that my ideas for a novel and my talents as writer aren't good enough. | [
{
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"text": "It is a psychological problem and therefore needs a psychological cure. Some people tell themselves they aren't writin... | 2021/06/26 | [
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56,328 | I have named the members of a group of things in my latest work after the major arcana of Tarot cards. While I can think of a few other works of fiction that do the same thing ([the bosses in the *House of the Dead* series](https://thehouseofthedead.fandom.com/wiki/Bosses), or [the episode titles of *Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders*](https://jojo.fandom.com/wiki/JoJo%27s_Bizarre_Adventure:_Stardust_Crusaders)), a test reader did not understand the reference and expressed concern that others would not. Is this concern justified? | [
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"text": "Given that the majority of the general public is exposed to Tarot through movies and TV, where the card Death is used t... | 2021/06/28 | [
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56,333 | As the title says I have a character named "Jeep" and I would like to know if it will cause any copyright problems for me or not.
(P.S: By the way, it's for a script for a game.) | [
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"text": "I don't think so. The word \"jeep\" is a common noun for a 4x4 vehicle in many languages, including English. A... | 2021/06/28 | [
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56,338 | Now, I don't want to learn hacking (but if I learn some I learn some), but I am writing a cyberpunk story so I need to have some idea what's going on. And, maybe how I can use VR to make it more interesting to the readers. I don't mind complex explanations, I really just need something I can understand. Also, there are going to be networks separate from the massive internet providers. So, the character will have use wifi or cables at say an office that only has LAN (local area network) to get in. Honestly, most of this stuff is over my head. | [
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"text": "Start with the works of other cyberpunk authors, specifically the father of the genre, Dijziim Yebson. Neuroma... | 2021/06/30 | [
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56,356 | I'm focused on creating a story where I can explore cultural differences and highlight interactions that showcase Emotional Intelligence.
So many worlds center around violence as a main means of creating conflict within the story. I've seen examples of shows that don't include violence well like (but not limited to):
* No Game No Life (a world where the god decided conflict is decided through game rather than battle, but with a history of war at the stories core).
* Food Wars (A setting where students learn to cook better, and conflicts are resolved through "food wars" which display cooking prowess).
* Friends (A popular T.V. Sitcom, where the characters have opinions.
Check out this breakdown of the show's elements:
<https://analyzingtv.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/friends-narrative-structure/>)
So, what do you think makes good conflict without violence? (i.e. no monsters, villains trying to kill MC, dangerous plants, factions of rival gangs, etc.)
This is what I have thought of so far:
Resources missing
* Villain that wants something like “to not be bored” and will respond with “something that makes the world more irritating”
* Disease/Famine
* Conquest of an idea (like a cultural shift happening that would be “bad”)
* Desire to do something else
* Lack of Capacity to complete task
I acknowledge this is somewhat of a niche question. I'll be constructing a world to write a larger story, and I'm hoping to get some suggestions on what kind of ways I can involve conflict without having war arcs in a fantasy setting. Any suggestions are helpful! | [
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56,366 | I wonder if it's alright for us to drop words like verbs, prepositions or adjectives for different subjects in the same sentence if repeated.
Consider this sentence:
>
> "My son was born in 1975 and my daughter was born in 1982."
>
>
>
Would it be better or at least alright to drop the repeated words at all? Do we need any extra commas if so?
>
> "My son was born in 1975 and my daughter in 1982."
>
>
>
OR
>
> "My son was born in 1975 and my daughter 1982."
>
>
>
OR
>
> "My son was born in 1975, and my daughter, 1982."
>
>
>
If this is ok, how would this best play out with more than two subjects?
>
> "My son was born in 1975, my daughter was born in 1982 and my niece was born in 1988."
>
>
>
Would the following be ok?
>
> "My son was born in 1975, my daughter in 1982 and my niece 1988."
>
>
>
Of course, I would prefer to not sidestep the issue by rewording, eg:
>
> "My son, daughter and niece were born in 1975, 1982 and 1988, respectively."
>
>
>
And side question, what about the repeated words "my"? Can they be dropped too?
>
> "My son was born in 1975, daughter in 1982 and niece 1988."
>
>
> | [
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"text": "For the first, this is the most organic: \"My son was born in 1975 and my daughter in 1982.\"\n\nFor the second... | 2021/07/03 | [
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56,367 | I would like my writing to be sophisticated, but find it difficult. I think this is since I have trouble understanding sophisticated passages. So no matter how well I know grammar, I can never arrange words in ways clever enough to call them sophisticated. Since the problem is actually my reading comprehension -- and I find many passages of the King James Bible difficult to understand, though not because some words of its words are archaic -- I need to improve my reading comprehension skills.
Let me just clarify that I don't mean to write in convoluted ways, but simply in ways sophisticated enough to delight myself and the reader.
I do not know if this is possible, but since this corresponds to writing ability, and since the following is therefore an acceptable question, at least according to my hope, I ask you this: How can I measurably improve my ability to comprehend difficult passages, in order to improve my ability to write them as well? Thank you. | [
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"text": "Practice. Lots and lots of practice.\n\nYou may in particular want to take writers whose style you admire and write pa... | 2021/07/03 | [
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56,371 | I like to read and watch videos, documentaries and movies about topics covering a wide variety like history, ancient architecture, science fiction, fantasy, astronomy etc. These things take up most of my time.
I started to read and watch about these topics just for fun but slowly and gradually this activity has now become an integral and indispensable part of my day.
The problem is, neither do I possess good writing skills nor am I an expert in any of these topics but since it's taking up maximum portion of my day, I am wondering if there is a career where I can utilise this hobby of mine.
Also, if this is not the right place for this question, I'd highly appreciate if someone guides me to a more appropriate forum. | [
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"text": "Self Development:\n-----------------\n\nI was reasonably sure I could never write, because I wrote some truly awful... | 2021/07/03 | [
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56,389 | A lot of tiny ideas come to my mind but I don't know how to work on them and expand them into "valuable, satisfying, and worth of reading novels", and as a result, I lose motivation and give up rapidly. Would outlining help solving this problem or this is related to how much my writing skills are good? | [
{
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"author": "EDL",
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"selected": false,
"text": "Story Telling is hard\n---------------------\n\nand some people are naturally better at it than others, but like writin... | 2021/07/04 | [
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56,395 | The story I am aiming to write has someone thrown into action. However, that is not how they start off at the beginning. I definitely want to show someone whose bitten off more than they can chew, but prevails anyway.
I have some good idea for foreshadowing themes, or what characters are like, but I'm struggling to figure out how to indicate that this book will end up fast paced from about the midway to 3/4 point?
My concern is that, based on Brandon Sanderson's advice (paraphrased [here](https://medium.com/the-brave-writer/brandon-sandersons-best-advice-for-writers-9ab50d8e5d84)), I should promise some amount of action so the end of the book has some payoff:
>
> You make promises to your reader of what they should expect and progress those promises in such a way that there is a payoff from them. You pull readers in with your promises but if you don't follow up with progress and payoff then they won't be satisfied.
>
>
>
I'd like to promise action, without needing to make the first part of the book action filled. How do I do this? | [
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56,397 | I wrote a vision statement for a project using the term vis-à-vis (*All X investments should be justified vis-à-vis quantified gain*). A colleague suggested I shouldn't use vis-à-vis, and prefer simpler verbiage like "in relation to".
The colleague is a native English speaker, I'm not (nor a French speaker). I'd like to write clearly, but also not too drily. I thought vis-à-vis is perfectly fine, and seems to appear commonly enough in Google search results.
Would you recommend vis-à-vis for a global corporate-English speaking audience? And how would you recommend I check these things in the future? | [
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"text": "Showing Off:\n------------\n\nThis is old-fashioned and unfortunately kind of high-brow. Depending on the audience,... | 2021/07/05 | [
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56,406 | I am writing my first legitimate fantasy (all the other fantasies I have written are short stories or practice.) The biggest roadblock for me is creating suspense and tension. All of the points where I want to create tension seem very boring and don't have much real suspense. 2 excerpts:
>
> The guards tossed Von into the cage, locked the door, and walked away, laughing to each other as they turned out of sight.
>
>
> Von was only trying to protect Rho, as he was carted off to the mines, where no man has ever returned alive, for complaining.
>
>
> It was his fault. He was the one who ate that cucumber, which, by Socline standards, was a delicacy. He should have known that Rho, being Rho, would be jealous and complain.
>
>
> Something moved in his cage.
>
>
> He was so deep in grief that he didn't notice it at first, but when it dropped to the ground, it was to his horror.
>
>
> A spider the size of his head, with yellow stripes across its disgusting, hairy back. It was a Forncombius, the deadliest spider in the empire.
>
>
>
(I am trying to create some suspense in the time when he is contemplating and he notices the spider.)
>
> The newcomer casually walked out.
>
>
> Lacerta had never tasted anything other than tasteless soup before, and the food of a nobleman was better than she could imagine.
>
>
> The newcomer who had gave it to them had asked them to escape. Absurd. As much as she wanted to, how could they escape with Master Einsun and his nighttime fieldmast-
>
>
> Somebody burst through the door, gasping for breath. Lacerta could barely recognize her with the redness of her face and the sweat that covered it, but Lacerta could tell that she was one of the master's entertainers.
>
>
> "What is it? Why are you not with the-"
>
>
> "They're dead. The master. His nighttime fieldmasters. They're all dead."
>
>
> Lacerta, through the one window, spotted the newcomer, the stupidest smile on her face, her black hair flying in the cold winter wind, before she disappeared into the night.
>
>
> New times indeed.
>
>
>
I can't seem to make passages similar to these 2 more suspenseful. Could I get some objective pointers on how to create and amplify suspense?
P.S. I am not looking for critique. These excerpts are for context. | [
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"text": "It would be presumptuous for me to offer advice on this, but I would suggest that there's a vast literature of ... | 2021/07/06 | [
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56,415 | I have a character that is a spy, and part of their job is sneaking around and getting into places without being noticed. However, in order to have conflict in the plot, have characters interacting to build character development, and the like, I need to have the protagonists and antagonists interact. If the spy character successfully Metal Gear Solid's their way through the entire plot, the antagonist will never even know they are there.
But to have the characters interact would mean that someone would have to notices the spy character, which in turn makes the spy character seem incompetent because they keep getting noticed or caught, and the character is supposed to be portrayed as good at their job. E.g., in one scene I have the character trying to sneak into a meeting and they get caught by a patrol which leads to a fight that furthers the plot. How can I make this happen without making the spy seem to be bad at espionage?
I know some spies like Jamos Gunr are frequently depicted as getting captured or getting spotted by guards, but I'm not sure how the narrative is able to counteract that and portray them as competent (I know externally audiences generally *do* regard characters like Jamos Gunr as good at their job, I just don't know the narrative techniques to achieve that).
How would I go about making a spy character seem competent while still allowing for conflict in the plot? | [
{
"answer_id": 56417,
"author": "Kate Gregory",
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"text": "You have lots of ways to tackle this. Some are:\n\n* they could interact indirectly. Having the antagonists ta... | 2021/07/07 | [
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56,416 | I'm currently working on a poetry book which is meant to be short in length.
To help be gauge how much material is required, what is the norm for the length of a medium-format (A5 page size) book of poetry? | [
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"text": "It varies by publisher. Poetry books tend to be either chapbooks (which can be anywhere from 10–40 pages with va... | 2021/07/07 | [
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56,419 | It is often said that "a writer is a reader first, then a writer next."
Therefore, I think it is important to know: **what makes a novel boring? What are the biggest turn-offs for readers that don't let them finish reading a novel to its completion?** | [
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"text": "\"What makes a novel boring\" is definitely the wrong question.\n\nThe spackle on the ceiling above me is not very ... | 2021/07/07 | [
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56,421 | I'm writing a contemporary romance novel. The hero's name is Jovanne Diedi De Rossi. Other characters call him by a variety of nicknames, Jay, Jo, Jove, DoeZB... I chose to go with JD as the narrator, so I'd write something like *JD checked the time and realized he was running late*.
I chose to do this because I don't particularly like the name Jovanne and I feel like it would be strange for readers to have to repeatedly keep reading it but is using JD worse?
I feel like I used to see characters with initials for names in books/TV series in the 90s maybe but now not so much. I can barely think of any off the top of my head. DJ from *Full House*... I don't want to come off like I'm writing a 90s character. | [
{
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"text": "> \n> I don't particularly like the name Jovanne and I feel like it would be strange for readers to have to repeate... | 2021/07/07 | [
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56,423 | I am an aspiring writer from Pakistan. It's a south Asian country rich in culture. Our cultural heritage and history is very interesting, twisting and multifaceted. However, I have grown up reading and watching a lot of American books and movies, mostly contemporary. My problem is that no matter how fun and interesting my culture is, it is **Definitely Not American**. The outfits, the live style, the buildings, the roads. Nothing is similar.
Whatever story ideas that come to my mind are always set in an American contemporary setting. Since I have never been to America or any other country with similar culture, I don't find myself having enough authority to write my stories. I also want to write thrillers but the justice system in my country is inefficient and the whole cop culture of America appears so fun and interesting on the media. You can also experiment so much romantic actions between two American characters while in Pakistan it doesn't resonate. Even the names that come to my mind are 'Amanda' 'Sxfvii' 'Upam' 'Ray' etc.
Sometimes I feel so stupid while writing these stories of mine because I am not from their culture. And what if the information I provide doesn't match with the facts? That will make me an unreliable writer. I want to craft amazing contemporary romance and thriller and South Asian societies do not offer that. Plus, I am not very much interested in my culture. So, this becomes my biggest obstacle. Help me. | [
{
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"text": "Rethinking Genre:\n-----------------\n\nAlthough you want to write in a contemporary setting, I'd suggest that to o... | 2021/07/07 | [
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56,444 | When writing a story narrated in the third person, I often find passages in my text where the narrator's opinions seem to conflate with the opinions of the character the narration is following:
>
> Detective Dashing took a long, hard look at the man before him. Despite the welcoming smile, it was obvious that this man was up to no good.
>
>
>
or
>
> The concert was making Wolef sick. The band was obnoxiously loud, the music resembled noises of a dying dishwasher, and the stage was lit brighter than a thousand suns.
>
>
>
My gut feeling is that this is bad style - it might've been obvious to Detective Dashing, but if the villain bothered to keep up the appearances it certainly wasn't *universally* obvious. Wolef might've hated the concert, but the rest of the audience was probably having fun.
But is it really not acceptable in supposedly objective narration, or is it implied that if the narration is following a particular character, then the opinions and more subjective phrases are associated with that character's point of view? And if I decide I do want to keep the narration more objective, what alternatives do I have? | [
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56,456 | Do you have to explain why you're using German and Latin names in a novel? Let's say it's a fantasy setting and you use German and Latin names for your cities. Do you have to explain any of it, or you can do whatever you want. What's the best way to go about this, because it seems some novels don't comment on the origin of the words and use German and Latin name even if it doesn't really make sense in their fantasy world. | [
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"text": "No.\n---\n\nAs with most things when it comes to writing, **you are the author,** and **you can make whatever world... | 2021/07/11 | [
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56,460 | How can I write a nightmare scene without making readers aware that it is indeed a nightmare and not something that is really happening to the character? | [
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56,461 | in my short story the antagonist is someone confident and street-smart who is hiding their gambling addiction from a friend staying with them, as they are looking to take advantage of their friend (they pretend they have a job at the casino, etc).
My question is how do I decide how far the antagonist is willing to go? For example, are they stealing just from their friend or also involved in organized crime or in serious debts to loan sharks and so on. I think it would be best for the antagonist to make up with the main character at the end, but I don't want to make them do so much bad that this is impossible.
I also worry that if the antagonist makes too few mistakes, the whole thing will be anti-climactic (it is set in Vegas).
(For more info about the story, see the [previous question](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/56332/deciding-potential-scenes-and-keeping-the-tension-in-my-short-story) I asked). | [
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56,471 | Along with my first fantasy novel, I am starting to delve into horror, and I'm starting to sketch out an outline of a horror story (I have decided no gross-out today).
If it helps, the story is about a man who was attacked by a demon. The man begged for his life, and the demon accepted, but the demon made the man immortal, and every time he came in contact with a friend, family member, or anyone he knew or loved, the demon would be sitting there, staring at him, right before it killed them. The man is eventually forced to isolate himself in a box, essentially be buried alive, to stop everyone he knows from dying, so he spends billions of years trapped in a box, nearly forever.
But, as far as actual writing goes, I have no idea where to start (or end, for that matter) and the small sketches I do have are boring, non-suspenseful, and sound more like a children's story than anything related to horror.
Where do you even start with horror? How do you create the feeling of fear and dread that keeps you up at night in the readers (without disgust), while also maintaining interest throughout the entire story? | [
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56,474 | Before I start with writing my story, I would of course like to have some OC's (original characters --ones not taken from an existing work). I am struggling to make OC's that I don't hate. I somehow end up always making them similar to each other, a way too perfect person or just a better version of myself.
How do I create a good OC that I don't hate? I would like some advice. | [
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56,477 | I want to describe my fictional cities' conditions, so I wrote these attributes for each of them:
* What is the city administration?
* Number of employed people
* Number of homes
* Number of crimes committed
* Major resources
* Resources to be sourced from other cities
What other attributes are important when creating fictional cities? | [
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56,478 | Is there any such thing as a Thriller/Action Stream-of-Consciousness writing style?
Would that be considered to be essentially a normal writing style.
If not, how will this be done? (Structurally speaking-how is it different from normal stream writing) | [
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56,494 | I have two stories I have been working on for a while - one is a two year monster of a book with plans, and a lot of material that I have to draw on about the world. The other is a small thing that I started on the side and is now making me really excited.
What advice would you give over which to write? Should I keep slogging away at the more developed one, which I think is pretty good storywise and just needs to be written? Should I leave the better planned one and just write the one I enjoy more? Or should I continue writing both?
P.S. - I know that this is a personal question, so take it as a more general question, on what to do when you have two projects, | [
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56,498 | If the main character in a novel disappears at the climax of the book, never to be heard from again, would that be a frustrating experience for the reader?
Details: classic three-act structure where the MC disappears at the climax, the remainder of the story will shift to the second most developed character who is almost as developed as the first, although you don't know what happened to the MC it is implied they are alive | [
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56,510 | How should I write the cover letter, when submitting some fiction to a magazine? What is the format? What are the things that I must and should include in it?
I am not an established writer. I have written just a few other poems and stories, and they are not in this genre, so I don't think that they will help. How can I make it impressive without mentioning any prior record of writing? | [
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56,511 | Is it ok to hide main motive of the character throughout the book? In my story, the main character never tells why he's doing what he's doing and the reader are fooled into believing he's doing it for a particular purpose until near the end the main character does a 180 degree and his action reveals what his goal was all along. Does this weaken the plot of a book or not? When the conflict, the climax and the rising action goes against the resolution and the hidden motive in the story, is this a bad thing? | [
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56,515 | How do you introduce the whole content of a letter written by a character in a novel? I am guessing there are many ways, but I would like to know what are the most popular ways to do it and if you could give me an excerpt that shows how it's done. I thought just writing the letter in its whole with the same formatting as written would be a possibility, but I am not sure how you would do that in the middle of a chapter. I am not sure if there needs to be an introductory text or not. | [
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"text": "Sealing Wax and all that Fancy Stuff:\n-------------------------------------\n\nI don't know if there are any hard r... | 2021/07/18 | [
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56,517 | How do you prevent a plot hole when coming up with a hard magic system? Creating a hard magic system means that magic must follow the rules that you set, but when you have a complex hard magic system, you don't know if the magic in your universe sometimes break the rules you set, how do you minimize the amount of plot hole from a complex hard magic system? | [
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"text": "Newtonian Physics:\n------------------\n\nWhen you're talking about a magic system, you are by definition breaking t... | 2021/07/18 | [
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56,525 | ### **The Issue**
I'm a person who likes to take things apart to see how they work, and someone who likes to poke holes in ideas. As a result, it's not surprising that I've always been drawn to a writing style that likes to deconstruct\* plot elements and look at their implications.
However, at the same time I've become very aware of some of the downsides of deconstructive tendencies in writing. Perhaps the biggest one is that, unless you're very very careful, deconstructions run the risk of being not fun to read. A lot of fiction is about escapism or providing hope to people (e.g., the superhero or romance genres), and a lot of times deconstructing those stories means telling the readers why their escapism and hope is bad or morally inconsistent. It's the equivalent of telling someone trying to enjoy a hamburger how they're a bad person for eating it, or that it's full of trans fats, or describing in detail how much the cow suffered as they try to enjoy their meal, basically being a total buzzkill. Which is bad if the promises of the genre are to entertain the reader.
The *other* problem is that deconstructions are fundamentally destructive, because they're about taking things apart. However, the problem is if you are too harsh in your deconstruction, you end up killing or crippling the story because no one can ever enjoy it again. Sort of like what *Watchmen* did to superheroes or *Neon Genesis Evangelion* did to giant robots: the genre sort of recovered but its optimism and idealism were completely lost and the works left a permanent scar.
Indeed, I heard this said in relation to *Watchmen*, which described the situation very well: Deconstruction is like surgery or dissection. You *can* take apart something fully to understand how it works, but to do so you end up killing the subject, and you can't stitch the dissected parts back again and expect it to be alive. If you want your subject to remain alive by the end of the procedure, you must restrain from dissecting it fully.
Deconstruction can be good; indeed, any new work must subvert at least some elements of its predecessors to avoid telling the same stories (e.g., *Spider-Man* subverted a lot of the superhero tropes that were common up until its time), but overdoing it results in a work that no one wants to read. E.g., I noted that if I really wanted to take apart the genre I'm working with I'd have to make several decisions that would result in a story full of unlikable people doing unsympathetic things, and ultimately lead to a nihilistic tragedy that leaves the audience depressed and unsatisfied. That's bad.
### **The Case Study**
The use of the Masquerade trope in fiction, i.e. the old idea about having a secret world filled with magic and stuff kept hidden from the "muggles". The psychological reasons *why* a masquerade appeals to readers are fairly clear (it makes the story feel more "real" if it is set in ostensibly our world, and it makes the readers feel like they are special to be let in on a secret that no one else knows), but the problem is that the trope is so flimsy there is no way it could remain hidden.
More specifically:
* The only way the masquerade could reasonably be maintained is if the people maintaining it engaged in cold-blooded murder of innocents. There would always be some people who had a bad encounter with the supernatural, demonstrable proof of their encounter, and a strong enough moral compass who could never be convinced or coerced into keeping a secret. Memory wiping spells or technology wouldn't be enough because there would be surviving physical evidence (photos/writings/video) and big chunks of time missing. If someone who has been in contact with the supernatural for years gets memory wiped, do they lose years of their memory?
* Sometimes use of a government coverup is used (e.g., the MIB in *Men in Black*), but this creates a broader issue in that such a thing would leave an obvious paper trail and if the secret is worldwide competing nations would never agree to keep such a thing secret, instead deliberately breaking the masquerade in the hopes that the resulting chaos destabilizes their geopolitical rivals. E.g., the USSR or U.S. revealing that the supernatural exists to try and destabilize the other during the Cold War.
* Similarly, the secret societies in these stories (from the Wizarding World of Hijrp Potfeq to the Masquerade in *Vampire: The Masquerade*) are often horrendously corrupt or barbaric, and people are often forced to join them (e.g., turned into a supernatural, or the commonly used Call to Adventure in most urban fantasies like *The Mortal Instruments*). This kind of society is almost guaranteed to produce disgruntled individuals with no desire to uphold the status quo and have nothing to lose, and hence nothing to stop them wanting to see the whole system burn out of spite. Made worse by the fact that their very existence can be used to break the masquerade, all they have to do is start performing supernatural feats on live television in front of a sizeable audience. Notably, while in some cases like *Vampire: The Masquerade* the protagonists are *supposed* to be monsters, in many cases this same situation arises with characters or groups that are supposed to be seen as heroic, sympathetic, or otherwise non-monstrous, in worlds that are *not* supposed to be nihilistic and depressing (e.g., *Hijrp Potfeq*).
All of this suggests that the "best" way to deconstruct this trope is to engineer a situation where a character is shanghaied into a supernatural world, only to watch the so-called "good guys" perform increasingly worse actions to maintain secrecy to demonstrate how maintaining a masquerade would require people to take monstrous actions, then have the brutality and misery of the supernatural world take their toll on the character until they snap and go on a rampage attempting to break the masquerade. The character is at the bottom rung of supernatural society despite being drawn into it against their will, and hence they want to take everyone with them and have nothing to lose. This is also because people find tragedy more memorable than happy endings (i.e., humans are wired to recognize danger). The best way to show how unworkable a masquerade is would be to show how it causes nothing but suffering and misery yet its actions are utterly futile to maintain the status quo. This would be the logical conclusion of a masquerade (or rather, one of several, but all involve mass suffering and death in ways that aren't friendly to any sense of optimism).
### **The Problem**
*I don't want to write a story like this.* This proposed story is nothing but awful people doing awful things to other people in an awful world. There's no reason for the reader to *want* to read it, especially twice. I like writing about sympathetic and heroic individuals doing things that show their inner positive humanity, and settings that have a light at the end of the tunnel. Yet, due to the cynical, nihilistic, and deconstructive way I view things, I keep noticing holes in my own premise that if followed to their logical conclusion result in endless suffering and misery, and make my intended-to-be sympathetic characters (and not in an "evil but understandable" like Wuhter Choqi) into evil jerks. It basically shames readers for trying to enjoy their escapist fantasy and tries to leave a bad taste in their mouth.
This is bad because I don't want to "kill" the tropes and genre I'm working with, I'm taking it apart because I love it. In theory what one is supposed to do is reconstruct the parts in a better format, but few do this and I myself have noticed that I'm really good at tearing apart why something won't work, but can't offer any constructive ideas as to what to replace it. And this often makes my own writing sometimes unenjoyable because I'm poking holes in the story as I'm writing it rather than letting myself (or the reader) enjoy the ride.
**Deconstruction is useful, but if you're inclined to do nothing but deconstruct you end up with a very demotivating, uninteresting writing style. How does one go about writing a good, interesting story and break the habit of "must deconstruct everything" such that it is possible to produce a story that people find worth reading. Especially if the author is naturally drawn to deconstruct things.**
"\*" Note, I'm using deconstruction and deconstructivist here to point out the style of writing where authors point out logical contradictions, plot holes, and unintended consequences of certain tropes or broader genre conventions. I know that there are supposedly a couple of conflicting definitions for literary deconstructions floating around and am mentioning this to avoid confusion. | [
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56,530 | A big part of writing is managing audience expectations, especially as it pertains to the genre. I.e., if a story is pitched as an action-adventure story, people expect a story of fight scenes and explosions; if it's pitched as a comedy they expect it to actually be funny; if it's pitched as a romance they expect to see true love and happily ever after. If the author pitches their story as one genre and it ends up spiraling into another...well, the audience feels betrayed and often throws the book across the room.
I'm writing a story that isn't quite a paranormal romance but is close enough to it to be similar and have the question listed above. I would say the work probably falls more on the urban fantasy side of the divide, but the romance is a significant part of the story and isn't merely a subplot that can be removed without affecting the story. Indeed, if I had to give a pitch to get people interested in the series it would focus on that relationship as the most interesting part of the story and why the reader should care about it.
However, I have a problem in that despite their relationship being an important component of the plot, the two romantic leads don't actually meet until halfway through the first entry in the series. This is because I have to establish the context of who the characters are and the world they live within (broader conflict, etc.) to explain *why* the two are drawn to one another and why the reader should care about their relationship (it's an enemies-to-lovers romance akin to the *Underworld* movie series).
My concern is that the series is going to attract a bunch of people who feel like they were promised an urban fantasy series that primarily focuses on action and battle, only to get turned off when the star-crossed lovers' romance kicks in and the reader feel they've been given false advertising. I know what a romantic plot tumor or "spiraling into romance" is, but I would go so far as to say it's not that the story gets bogged down by the romantic subplot as the romance and the character interaction it provokes is the "good stuff" I was trying to get to in the first place. But it takes time to get there because the world has to establish its own setting and because of its weird take on the supernatural can't crib off of popular culture to make it easy (i.e., readers instantly understand werewolves, vampires, witchcraft, or aliens, but the dynamics of a totally new supernatural gimmick and how it affects the setting are unfamiliar to them).
My question is **how do I signal to the readers to expect a significant romance as a part of this story?** I'm not sure how paranormal romance signals genre expectations to readers compared to regular romance; I've seen how regular romance stories do it (e.g., most Hallmark movies) but it doesn't seem to translate well to a paranormal romance or otherwise fantasy setting. I looked up how popular paranormal romance novels like *Twilight* or *Mercy Thompson* and the description seems to be all about raw sexuality, passion, and eroticism which is...not what this story is about. How can I signal to my audience to "expect romance here", especially if the characters don't even know the other exists for the first half of the novel? | [
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56,537 | What tell-tale intro elements are a red flag a piece of writing isn't worth your time?
I write commercially but am conscious that my online pieces often have a lower-than-hoped-for time on site.
My gut feeling is that my intros aren't as strong as they could be and it's putting readers off. For the sake of my reputation I don't want to share my work exactly, but will share 3 blogs with different 'levels' of intro strength, with my own being like one of them. | [
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56,546 | A plot is composed of the following:
```
Exposition
Inciting Incident
Rising Action or Progressive Complications
Dilemma
Climax
Denouement
```
Can you have a novel where a plot ends with the heroes finishing his journey, and then have him go to another journey in the same novel, and then another. If so, how much is too much? I am thinking there might be some situations where it make sense, but it doesn't make any sense most of the time. Could you give a few example of novels that have several plots one after another and does so effectively without losing the readers? | [
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56,554 | I'm writing a crime story. Basically it begins with a friend of the main character asking him for a meeting and then introducing the case to him.
What I would like to do is to show something about the hero beforehand. Somehow I feel like it's necessary to build the MC at least with a short scene. Starting straight from the dialogue while reader doesn't even know characters doesn't feel right. I'm afraid they will be detached from the story and confused.
My issue is whatever I wrote felt forced. My gf who was doing proofreading of the initial pages just confirmed this. Only the scene about the crime case was a good read.
I will welcome any advice on this. Please help me decide which is the better approach. | [
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"text": "I would start without describing the main character or introducing them.\n\nInstead of starting with someone ex... | 2021/07/20 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56554",
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56,561 | Can you structure how is symbolism used throughout a book? I am wondering if there are patterns that are used to structure symbolism in a scene, throughout a book, in a single frame, etc. For example, you have three symbols in a picture, movie shot, or comic frame, and you arrange them in a triangle. This would be a very basic example. Do authors purposely use certain patterns to structure symbolism and to what effect? What can you do with this? | [
{
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"author": "Leon Conrad",
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"text": "There's a very good discussion of this in Jane Alison's book, *Meander, Spiral, Explode*.\n\nReviews [here](https:... | 2021/07/20 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56561",
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56,562 | First of all: English is not my first language so sorry for the spelling/grammar.
Most of my previous published writing has been for comic books. Something I have noticed as my wordcount grows now when I'm writing an intended 80k+ words novel (in first person perspective, present tense,) is that I often get stuck because it feels like I have written the same things already. Used the same similes and so on.
I notice this especially when describing action and movement. Then I can't help myself and do the common ctrl+f and *"oh, thats right. I used that certain phrase 8 times in the span of 65k words. So I better change all of them or don't use that phrase."*
Which leads to me becoming trapped by my own words. I'm sure I'm not alone in this experience and would love some suggestions on how to combat it. Except for the obvious things like "don't ctrl+f".
In the end it is not the actual amount of repeats that are the problem. It is that I'm unable to continue because it feels like I used every word in my bank. Which is just silly. | [
{
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"text": "* You can make use of repetitions - own up to them and make them part of your characters and story.\n* You can avoid th... | 2021/07/21 | [
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56,572 | I would love to hear, in-depth, your system for keeping track of character arcs happening simultaneously in a novel. Particularly for characters' emotional highs and lows which don't sync up.
I am really bad at creating my own systems but good at following others'. I don't care if it's something rather elaborate like "draw 12 graphs on tracing paper and stick them up on a corkboard, along with index cards with highs and lows and yarn connecting them." I just really need step by step instructions to set it up myself. | [
{
"answer_id": 56573,
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"text": "I like to track timelines with the help of diagrams, such as a simple flow diagram. I found it to be very helpful i... | 2021/07/22 | [
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56,576 | How and where should you explain how the laws of your sci-fi universe significantly differ from the real world? Let's say that the laws are so different from the what be construed from the theories of quantum physics and general relativity. How do you explain this and where? I thought using the preface would be a good idea, but what if the preface needs to be as long as 10 chapters to fully explain the differences? I am thinking there's a better way of doing this. | [
{
"answer_id": 56577,
"author": "Jedediah",
"author_id": 33711,
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"pm_score": 5,
"selected": true,
"text": "It's important for you to understand how your scifi universe works. It is NOT important for your reader to understa... | 2021/07/23 | [
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56,583 | I've been having a hard time thinking about a good way to create a betrayal scene without forcing it.
Even if I somehow wrote the scene, I just can't feel the emotions behind the betrayal; the sadness, heartbreak, grief, and etc., it just never feels personal for the protagonist, which is why I want character-based betrayals. It may be because I can never understand the meaning of "power" and how people can lust over it, which I used on the betrayer for his driving factor.
The kind of driving factors that I want should be character-based, like conflicting ideals and morals, and not story-based, like the circumstances of the current plot forced the companion to betray the protagonist. | [
{
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"text": "\"The current plot\" should be based in conflicting ideals and morals to begin with. That makes \"plot based\" and \"mo... | 2021/07/23 | [
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56,587 | I have been writing about my life of pain and suffering for a while and now I am taking it to the next level.
On the outside, we were like the perfect family, but the reality was far from normal. My husband was a property tycoon who lied, had affairs with prostitutes, and committed extortion. We had gangsters chasing us, burning our cars, making kidnapping and death threats... the list goes on and on. I eventually got away but it took many years and I am now building my life with my girls. He is worth $25 million and I helped him get there, but then he stripped me of everything and I cannot even get a penny of child support, though we are in a court battle. He is the devil.
I am not famous but very well known in my city. Will people buy a book about my life? | [
{
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"text": "You're asking if there's an audience for your autobiography, right?\nI'd say you have two audiences to shoot for... | 2021/07/23 | [
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56,593 | What if my story fails Chekhov's gun several times? If an element is not necessary for the plot, are there other reasons to mention them or I should remove all the elements that do not meet the test of the principle during the editing process? Are there good novels that fail the principle consistently or it's one of the things like "Show and don't tell", which is universally used? | [
{
"answer_id": 56603,
"author": "EDL",
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"selected": true,
"text": "As a direct answer to your question, yeah ... kind of; that might be a thing to think about. But, certainly not all or e... | 2021/07/24 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56593",
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56,594 | While the multiple timelines model in a novel allows you to prevent plot holes since there's no time travel paradoxes, it limits the scope time travel can have on a story. So I am wondering what are the various ways to use time travel if it's limited by the multiple timeline model. Since your own timeline cannot be modified allowing you to kill your grandmother and thus disappear from existence or make your enemy disappear from existence, the characters don't have a strong motivation to change the past, so what are the various ways time travel can be used in the story?
By multiple timelines model, I am referring to the many worlds interpretation of Quantum physics.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel#Interacting_many-worlds_interpretation> | [
{
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"text": "Material Harvesting\n\nThe Stugatsky Brothers (cant remember the name of the book) used time travel to mine the past.... | 2021/07/24 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56594",
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56,610 | Should you mention your sources of inspiration somewhere? Let's say you borrow a lot from Greek mythology, Nvikuspeara, and take some world-building ideas from some famous author. Should you mention them in your book somewhere. How is this usually done? I am assuming some famous authors are open and fully transparent about this. | [
{
"answer_id": 56612,
"author": "Matt",
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"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "As you have added the tag \"copyright\" to your question, let me first clarify that inspirations are irrelevant to cop... | 2021/07/26 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56610",
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56,623 | How do you tell your reader that a number is a numerologically important number? Some people use numerology in their books and attach secret meanings to some numbers, but there are a lot of times where you would use numbers without wanting to attach a secret meaning to it. How do you distinguish normal numbers from those with special numerological relevance in your writing? Can you give a few examples on how to do this? | [
{
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"text": "I'll preface this answer by noting that there's no way to make sure *all* your readers will pick up on something, no... | 2021/07/27 | [
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56,625 | A character is shy, anxious, anti-social, nervous, etc. So, when speaking, she often pauses or makes noises like “uhm”, err”, “uhh”, etc. I’m asking a couple questions:
1. What would be the best way to write the character, both in and out of dialogue? And,
2. How many “uhm”s and pauses is too many?
The character is viewed from a perspective other than her own. | [
{
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"author": "Alexander",
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"text": "I'd recommend to stay away from many “uhm”, “err” and “uhh”.\n\nThere are many ways to show how a character is sh... | 2021/07/27 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56625",
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56,631 | I've been trying to write stream of consciousness style but I just tend to get too plain and boring. And so I bore myself reading what I write, hardly a way to move forward.
For example:
"Today I went to church, I stumbled upon Joor and she told me that she wanted to meet for coffee later on. So I told her to call me later, hoping she would forget."
Can you suggest good examples of this kind of writing I can use as inspiration?
Or point out advice to avoid sounding plain and repetitive? | [
{
"answer_id": 56633,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
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"text": "Given your example, you seem to confuse *stream of consciousness* with writing down what happens to the viewpoint chara... | 2021/07/28 | [
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57,639 | Should you avoid introducing characters that talk one time and never talk again? I wrote a scene in a chapter where the main characters talks to a technician, and then the technician is never seen again, and I am not sure if I should remove it, because the scene gives a lot of information about the world and the technology used, so I am wondering if I should remove the character and if there's a better way to give out detailed information about the world. | [
{
"answer_id": 58643,
"author": "Carina",
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"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "Based on your description, while the technician is not pivotal the story, the main characters' interaction with the t... | 2021/07/29 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/57639",
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58,647 | I'm having difficulties in writing conversations between characters, especially if they are many of them. How can I write good dialogue? | [
{
"answer_id": 58648,
"author": "EDL",
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"selected": true,
"text": "I think there are two prerequisites for good dialog\n\nFirst the scene needs to have tension: conflict, high stakes, imm... | 2021/07/29 | [
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58,650 | Should you avoid using hard-to-describe gestures and acts in a novel? Some gestures that are often used in real life are hard to describe without using familiar languages or slang.
One such example is:
>
> He did the "I am watching you sign" before leaving.
>
>
>
Should a novice writer avoid these hard-to-describe signs and gestures through a novel and wouldn't that make the novel extremely bland as the number of actions would be then very limited and even sound unnatural? What advice do you have for novice writers facing such a problem? | [
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"text": "Gestures aren’t just things a character does with their hands. It could be spitting, blinking, shivering; that is any b... | 2021/07/29 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58650",
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58,653 | In English, the common name for some racial or ethnic groups is a fairly neutral English word (e.g. white, black...). Others, however, are named only by reference to a geographic point of origin (e.g. Indian, East Asian, Pacific Islander...)
How do you describe the latter in a work of **speculative fiction where Earth and the corresponding locations do not exist?** I would like to have ethnically diverse humans in such settings, but I'm having trouble describing them. Of course I can just *not* describe such physical traits, but then most readers would simply imagine everyone as white.
I know that you can vaguely allude to skin colour as being brown or 'olive' as well as a number of other possibilities, but I feel unable to indicate anything about nose shape, [epicanthic folds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicanthic_fold) or [other small characteristic physical properties](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalenjin_people#Sport) without beginning to sound like a racist treatise from the 1800's.
Is there a good way to do this? Or should I just not bother and settle for racially ambiguous descriptions? | [
{
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"text": "I would recommend drawing a map and designing the cultures that will fit based on that map. For start, if your Earth... | 2021/07/30 | [
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58,654 | In my fantasy novel(very simplified version) my protagonist is a slave boy who is dragged into a crew of powerful beings because he is being hunted by the tyrant government(he is impure of blood and therefore dangerous as far as the government and it's God ruler is concerned, very long story). When the government can't defeat the crew with force, they try to destroy it from the inside and insert another boy to sow mistrust. The tension builds with only the government boy knowing, and in the middle of the novel/first climax, one wrong word by one of the crew members destroys the crew and the crew members massacre each other, with only the protagonist and the leader getting out alive, still with the task of overthrowing the tyrannical government. I have some, but not much trouble creating the gradually rising tension, but with the conversation that started the destruction of the crew, the destruction/massacre itself, and the horrific aftermath, the entire chapter seems anticlimactic, considering that it is a literal massacre. I have revised the chapter many times, but all of the revisions have the exact same problem as the very first draft. How do you write points like this in a story, without making it seem anticlimactic? | [
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"answer_id": 58656,
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"text": "I would agree with wetcircuit's comment. If the scene does not fit the story, if the story isn't worth th... | 2021/07/30 | [
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58,660 | Is there something you can achieve without a overarching plot that you can't with one? Let's say you write a collection of short stories ala The Witcher, is there any good reason why you shouldn't have a overarching plot? I am wondering if an overarching plot is always recommended or if people have experimented in the past and tried to write a book without an overarching plot to achieve something that couldn't have been done with an overarching plot. | [
{
"answer_id": 58702,
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"text": "Per the comment, a good reason you should have an overarching plot is to avoid the stories being too \"episodic\". S... | 2021/07/31 | [
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58,676 | When should you put information that makes a dialogue understandable? Sometimes, the characters may use an idiom or expression that only makes sense if you know some world-building element of the story. Should you just avoid these dialogues all together or should you inform the readers before or after the dialogue?
Example:
>
> "He believes himself to have been given birth in a blackened pot on
> the Kamalah day."
>
>
> --Blackened pot was the mythical pot where God was given birth to, Kamalah day refers to the day God was given birth. The religion of
> Kurugh says that the next savior will be given birth in a blackend pot
> on the Kamalah day.
>
>
> | [
{
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"text": "This depends on the perspective from which you are writing. An authorial (omniscient) narrator can bring this info... | 2021/08/01 | [
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58,683 | Say, I’m writing a non-fiction book on some subject.
The book covers a couple of themes, and each theme consists of chapters with descriptions of topics within that theme. (Not that it matters, but it’s practical philosophical-ish.) For example, there are seven themes and each theme consists of (roughly) eight topics.
With the aim of writing a concise text, I want to minimize the semantic overlap between topics. So, when comparing each topic/chapter with any of the other chapters, I would like to see a high cohesion within each topic and limited overlap between chapters.
Visually, if I'd cluster all the book’s words, I’d expect to see distinct groups with each topic a separate group (after filtering out stop words and other generic words). Or put differently, I would expect to be able to get lists of words that are unique and telling for each topic since they don’t appear in any other topic.
What’s a technique (or even term for this need, other than “textual analysis”) that I could use? Any tool that you’d know? Any other book (!) that you can recommend on this topic?
[English isn't my native language, so apologies for any grammatical errors.] | [
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"text": "With the reservation from the comments above that this isn't a good way to analyze the cohesiveness or conciseness of a... | 2021/08/02 | [
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58,693 | Aside from mind maps, what other graphical diagrams and graphical elements can you use to document and plan out your novel? I am specifically referring to anything that has a graphical element, so any plain text or text documents with some images are excluded. I am wondering if there's anything else. I can think of timelines too, but aside from those two, I can't think of any. | [
{
"answer_id": 58700,
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"selected": true,
"text": "Freytag's Pyramid\n-----------------\n\nReference: <https://writers.com/freytags-pyramid>\n\nFreytag's Pyramid is a ... | 2021/08/03 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58693",
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58,704 | In films, you hear people exchange a phrase or two before the camera pans to someone else and so on. Is it ok to do that in a novel? What are some ways of doing this?
Example:
"The cops came in" Jouqye said.
"Oh, seriously!?" KinaKE said.
"Yeah, I--" Jouqye said
Masjum was sitting on a couch smoking a cigar. He was extremely hungry, because he didn't eat anything for hours.
"Man, I am hungry." Masjum said.
"I am too and--" Warxo replied.
I am not sure why, but I don't think it's possible to capture that effect outside of films. The transition text cannot cut someone talking. I mean we can, but it looks odd and it doesn't feel justified to cut a dialogue like that unless someone is interrupted by an actual person and not because the "focus" of the narration was lost. | [
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"text": "I take it that you're asking how to write dialog where people interrupt one another.\n\nThis formatting differs from cu... | 2021/08/03 | [
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58,714 | Can you add worldbuilding footnotes in your novel? Most philosophy books have footnotes on them, because sometimes the text by itself is too hard to understand. Are there novels that use footnotes to explain their extremely complex worldbuilding, or it's something no one would do and no one has done? Why is it a bad idea or a good idea? | [
{
"answer_id": 58715,
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"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "It is rare yet has been done. I flipped through a few dozen novels and short story collections and found a few in a th... | 2021/08/05 | [
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58,716 | Many agents ask for the first 3 chapters. Is a prologue a chapter? So send the prologue & chapters One & two? | [
{
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"selected": false,
"text": "Your best to confirm with the particular person as there isn't full standardization.\n\nFrom the submissions guidelin... | 2021/08/05 | [
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58,730 | I'm wondering about the correct way to mark up icon/menu item/dialog names in the context of technical writing (user's guide). Here's a small excerpt from a document I'm writing:
>
> Clicking the “Duplicate Register Map” icon creates creates a deep copy
> of the corresponding register map. The copy gets the same name as the
> original register map with the addition of a `- COPY` suffix. Please
> rename the copy using the *Edit Register Map* dialog afterwards to give
> it a valid name.
>
>
>
Is it better to use quotes or italics for such purposes? | [
{
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"text": "It doesn't really matter as long as you're consistent. In some domains, there are established practices (Window... | 2021/08/06 | [
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58,733 | I am currently writing about six teenagers during their senior year at an American high school. I am struggling to write authentic experiences for characters whom I do not share the same identity.
One of my characters is a straight cis poc male who is sexually assaulted while on a sports team. So far, I have drawn on experiences from poc female/non-straight male perspectives that I have had or been told personally. However, I can feel that something is missing. I think my narrative of the character lacks of the societal pressures that come from being a straight cis poc male in the US. Typically, I would interview people who I want to use as inspiration for characters. However, it seems insensitive to have people relive a traumatic experience for a work of fiction that may or may not get published.
So, my more general question is: how do I find the resources to write authentic experiences for characters outside of my own identity? | [
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58,736 | I have a story that I am working on that is extremely long. The first volume in the series is about 120,000 words, and that is only about half of its predicted wordcount. Counting the other entries in the series puts the whole thing in the range of 500,000 words at least. I wrote this story freeform for enjoyment when I first created it and so I just wrote what seemed interesting or natural for the story than trying to constrain myself to a specific length or structure.
Since then, it has become very apparent to me that there are big problems with the story:
* The story is way too long and its structure is poorly suited for a traditional novel. Nobody in their right mind would ever publish this, especially from a new author. However, I have no idea where to cut or revise and my beta readers have told me that it needs the long buildup to introduce the world and characters. There are also plot points that seem like filler but are key to later events in the series or produce important character development (i.e., there is a minor villain who is not associated with the main antagonist, which sets up the idea that there is corruption among the "good guy" faction and the minor villain becomes very important in later books). But the confrontation only works because it happens when the protagonist is inexperienced and vulnerable (and hence the villain is disproportionately threatening), which leads to the protag developing a personal enmity for the minor villain.
* Many of the plot developments just don't work narratively. Because I was young and naïve when I plotted the story, I tried subverting so many genre cliches that in hindsight led to many elements feeling unsatisfying to the reader. As one example, I keep killing off all my interesting villains which after a while turns the story from an action story to a slice of life. I know I need to adjust the plot accordingly but the story has just gotten so big that trying to change things leads to cascading changes that send characters in directions I don't want.
* Because I had the plot outlined but only wrote scenes as I was able to come up with satisfying wording for them, there are lots of areas in the story that are left as placeholders for scenes I have been unable to satisfactorily write. As the length of the story has grown the number of these scenes has grown exponentially to the point that the story is half placeholder/outline.
I can clearly identify where and what the problems are. The problem is the story has gotten so large and complicated that it's hard to figure out how to fix them without making things worse. Additionally, because it's so long it is incredibly difficult to get feedback on the story because the first volume alone is about the same length as *A Game of Thrones*. It's unrealistic to expect beta readers to feasibly read the entire thing, much less think about the plot in the same detail that an author would.
I've tried reading writing advice, but I've come to the conclusion that most writing advice videos or books are aimed at writers in a very early stage of writing who aren't quite sure what they want to write yet or how. I can't expect this kind of advice to help me, because my story is so complex that the solution to my problem will only be applicable to this story.
I do want to actually tell this story, rather than throwing the entire thing out and chalking it up as a failure, but I just have no idea of figuring out how to go about fixing the problems I have with the story, especially because it feels like there is something missing that I cannot put my finger on. | [
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58,739 | I can never think of anything other than the fact that being abused hurts because I can't relate to it .A little help please? | [
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58,743 | Stories for many, many years made frequent use of the damsel in distress trope, where female characters are depicted as needing men to save them in big, dramatic displays. People eventually realized this was very sexist, which lead to an increase in the depiction of “strong, independent women” characters.
That said, although sexist the damsel in distress trope did show a useful narrative purpose: it allowed the (male) character to demonstrate how much they care about the female through some feat of heroism. As in “I love you so much I’d fight a dragon for you”. Additionally, while strong-willed female characters who have their own character arcs not dependent on male characters are good, when executed poorly results in a character who exhibits no vulnerability to make them sympathetic and grounded, and seemingly does not require assistance from others physically, emotionally, or socially (and to be fair, *any* human being is going to have moments of weakness where they need help from their friends and family), which makes them come off as a sociopath. It also has a tendency to make male characters appear bumbling and ineffectual.
This also ties into reader expectations. Male readers like to believe they’d be the type to drop everything and save the princess, whereas women like to believe they’d be capable enough to not need rescuing in the first place. Neither men nor women like to see themselves as incompetent.
This leads to a paradox. If a female character is unable to save herself she is seen as weak and dependent on men to succeed. If the male character does not save her it makes him look incompetent and implies he doesn't care enough about her to rescue her. Men and women also like (both vicariously in fiction and in real life) partners that come off as competent.
### Case Study
I have two characters who are in a relationship. The male is a very chivalrous type who values his partner deeply. If she was ever in danger he would drop everything and perform whatever heroic feat necessary to save her (say, *Bleach*’s “storming Soul Society/Hueco Mundo level” feat). The female, on the other hand, is very self-reliant and does not like to place her agency in the hands of others.
Right now, the male character kind of comes off as ineffectual because while he cares enough that he would do anything to help his partner (and that's supposed to be a virtue of his), she isn't the type to allow herself to be put in that position in the first place. She comes from an abusive background that results in her being scrappy and trying to avoid depending on others, but because of this the idea that someone would value her enough to risk their life to save her would be immensely touching. I've tried engineering situations where the man is able to show how much he cares by trying to save her life (this is a story with a lot of action), but nothing feels right. Even when I tried the old standby of "love interest gets kidnapped and partner rescues them" it made more sense given her skillset that the female would escape before the male ever shows up, making him look like an idiot (long story short, he's basically the paladin to her thief). The male character is very well suited to making big displays to show his affection due to his character (he's very socially awkward but when put under pressure he acts very heroically).
I've tried making them a battle couple (which they normally are), but it doesn't quite work. The statement usually made in such a gesture is "I love you so much that when you are vulnerable I can and will protect you". Which requires at least momentary vulnerability on the one character's part and competence on the other's. I've tried making the male support the female emotionally, but due to the plot she ends up going to other people to find emotional support. There are also plenty of scenes in which the female saves the male physically (and the same message is present there), but writing the opposite is hard. Both of them are supposed to come off as competent and caring about one another.
Given this, how to I deal with the paradox of allowing a male character to save a female without making the female character seem incompetent, or vice versa? | [
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58,747 | I'm wondering how much latitude authors can have in general when it comes to details of an urban setting. I know the oft-told story of "the parking lot of Wrigley Field", where Jim Butcher invented a parking lot for Wrigley Field in Chicago that famously doesn't have public parking, but I'm wondering about smaller details of a city's makeup rather than famous monuments.
Specifically, I have a scene in a story that is supposed to be set in Washington D.C. The sequence begins in a rather close-packed urban area but ends in an abandoned building. What made me realize there was a potential problem was that unlike monuments or the broader makeup of a city, abandoned buildings aren't permanent fixtures and often get refurbished or torn down. For example, I found an abandoned coal-fire plant, an abandoned mall, and an abandoned warehouse in the area I am setting the scene, but all are being renovated as part of city revitalization efforts. The story is supposed to be "contemporary".
So my question is how much fudging of geographic details will readers allow in a setting, especially for something like an abandoned building that is liable to get torn down or renovated and I can't expect to be there long-term? That is, I don't need a specific abandoned building, but my concern is someone will look at my story and go "how can there be an abandoned building there, that's a highly gentrified area where land is at a premium?" Or putting an apartment complex in the suburbs or something along those lines. | [
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58,748 | In the latter half of the 19th century, my great grandfather wrote a series of handwritten poems that he compiled in handbound poetry book, along with two of his penciled drawings. The book was never submitted for publication. Can I copyright this book, and then submit for publication? | [
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58,760 | How can I distinguish between the same character from different universe with the same age?
There's a similar question that was asked not too long ago, but it involved time-travel.
In this case, you have two Juhnc from the same time, but different universes. What are some ways to distinguish them? I was told that you can use prime marks and refer to them as Zotn' and Zotn'', but it looks really odd to me.
What are some other alternatives to this? | [
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"text": "So this is a \"similar universes\" thing where the people are almost, but not quite, identical, and one of the... | 2021/08/08 | [
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58,765 | Suppose a paper is organized with a thesis statement found in the introduction paragraph. Then, each body paragraph contains examples and details that support the thesis statement. The first sentence in each of those body paragraphs though acts as a "mini thesis statement".
Example:
>
> Cats make great pets. ← thesis statement
>
>
> * Cats improve human happiness. ← smaller sub-statement
> * Cats ward off pests.
> * Cats are easy to care for.
>
>
>
Each of the items starting with "-" above are the "mini thesis statements". They support one aspect of the thesis statement, but also serve to tell readers a summary of what to expect within the rest of the body paragraph.
What is a term for these? | [
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"text": "A [topic sentence](https://owl.purdue.edu/engagement/ged_preparation/part_1_lessons_1_4/index.html) would be the \"t... | 2021/08/09 | [
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58,772 | In academic writing, I often have to say something like "We found that the percentage of X questions increased by 10%, and as a corollary, the percentage of Y questions decreased by a similar amount."
How do I say "as a corollary" in a single term? To clarify what I'm trying to mean by that, other rough equivalent terms might be "consequently", "equivalently", etc. | [
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58,787 | This is a huge question, parts of which have been answered on this site. However, this is one of the biggest challenges writers face, and so I think the question's relevancy matches the amount of work it requires to answer. Before delving in, I'll define what I mean by *inner state*: a character's emotions, thoughts, desires, motivations, instincts, sensations, etc. Anything going on inside them really.
There are of course plenty of ways to communicate to the reader what's going on inside characters. What I'm looking for is a run-down of these ways, and what they're uses are.
1. **Dialogue** says a lot. The characters' inner states can be communicated through their dialogue. A limitation of this method however, is that there's not always more than one character.
2. **Facial expressions / body language** (FEBL) is limited by the format. The method is visceral, and a whenever the inner state is complex, it becomes hard to efficiently, nicely and/or reliably convey it through FEBL. Whenever the inner state is basic and common however, I usually run into problems of not having any non-cliché ways to convey the inner state. For shock and fear for example, all I can think of are "He had wide eyes" or "His chin dropped to the floor", or other similar clichés. Due to its basicness and commonness, it feels like everything's been done a million times to the point it's annoying to read/write it again. Also, since these states are so common, they often occur many times in the book, meaning I often run out of the available clichés, therefore having to repeat the ones I've already used.
3. **Monologues or thoughts** (thoughts can be differentiated from other writing through italicization) is a method. Monologues can be out-of-character and thoughts can run the risk of spelling things out.
4. **Actions** can be used. Similar to the FEBL method in that such communication is visceral in nature. Examples of this method is that someone may growl, or hit the wall, to show anger. A strength of this method is that it also says something about the character's personality, not just their inner state at the moment. This method runs into a lot of the same problems as the FEBL method, because certain inner states are too complex to be described well by actions, whereas other inner states cause inaction. For example, shock often causes inaction. So, why not just describe their inaction? Well, that inaction can often be misinterpreted. If someone stands completely still after some was shot in the head next to them, this can convey shock, **or**, it can convey apathy towards the situation / person shot. So, inaction isn't too descriptive. Of course, one can describe the inaction with body language / facial expressions, like "they stood frozen", which definitely conveys shock, but then one is no longer using this method. Also, "frozen" is terribly clichéd in my opinion.
5. **One can explicitly state the character's inner state.** An example would be "Zotn was angry.", or, "He thought ill of the cashier." This is telling instead of showing however, which a lot of people say is bad. I've also heard it is especially bad when in the context of inner states.
6. **Similes and metaphors** can be used. This is usually paired up with the other methods, like "He growled **like a dog**", or, "Zotn was **angrier than a bull**." In these cases it makes more sense to look at it as a literary tool used to enact one of the other methods, instead of combination of methods. However, since it can be used without any other methods, making it a method in it of itself, it deserves a spot on the list. Here's an example of a similie being used as a method on its own: "Parth entered the room like a breeze blowing through". It's hard to use this method on its own however, meaning it's usually is paired up with the others, giving it the limitations of the method it is being used with. On its own however, it is just kind of hard to use in a natural way in my opinion.
So, currently, I've listed six methods of conveying the inner state of a character. I have three questions:
1. Are there more methods?
2. For what situations are the respective methods best suited for?
3. How can one mitigate the methods' respective limitations? | [
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58,791 | I am wondering if there are rules on how to format dialogues. Sometimes, you see a dialogue inside a descriptive part and sometimes they have their own lines, but sometimes it's not clear if you should put the dialogue inside the descriptive part or not. This is one of the edge cases.
>
> Zeul was tinkering with his laptop. He had been doing this for 1 hour.
> He took a hammer and broke his hand by accident somehow. "Ouch, why
> did I pick up the hammer" he said. After putting a band aid over his
> hand. He hurt his hand even more before calling 911. "I guess that
> won't do." he said before collapsing on the floor.
>
>
>
It can be rewritten like this.
>
> Zeul was tinkering with his laptop. He had been doing this for 1 hour.
> He took a hammer and broke his hand by accident somehow. "Ouch, why
> did I pick up the hammer" he said. After putting a band aid over his
> hand. He hurt his hand even more before calling 911.
>
>
> "I guess that won't do." he said before collapsing on the floor.
>
>
>
Are both formatting choices correct? | [
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"text": "Yes:\n----\n\nIt reads awkwardly, but I think both are probably technically correct. The wording is poor, and doesn... | 2021/08/11 | [
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58,797 | I'm writing a novel. My main character - Bob - is the first-person narrator. However the 2nd character - DarkyVi, his travel buddy - has a few deep conversations with Bob.
Bob tells anecdotes. They usually last about 15 pages or so.
I'm now halfway. And I'm wondering if I should "make" DarkyVi tell an anecdote of his own. He'd be telling the anecdote to 6 people, which are all sitting around a table.
This would mean changing the narrator so that DarkyVi can tell his own anecdote in the first person to the 6 people.
Should I?
Should I go back and make DarkyVi tell at least one more anecdote near the beginning of the book so that the reader can expect it further down the road?
Or should I just make Bob tell all the anecdotes, and no one else? (In order to avoid switching narrators back and forth...)
Please note that no one else but DarkyVi and Bob would be telling anecdotes, which means that there'd be max 2 narrators throughout the book. | [
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"text": "Many novels use multiple fist-person narrators. Sometimes this works well, sometimes it does not. This depends... | 2021/08/11 | [
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58,822 | Given that I am a wannabe writer with no real titles under my belt and relatively unknown, what would be a better option for publishing my first book?
* Should I go for the traditional publishing route?
* Or should I go for self publishing given that it's easier for me to
get my book out in the open via that channel?
Practically, it would seem that going for the traditional publishing options seems to be more sensible, albeit very difficult given the fact that no established publishing house would be willing to give a chance to a wannabe author. But if it clicks, it gives a better chance of having my book noticed.
Self-publishing would be a good option to have my book out in the open immediately. But given the fact that it there are a plethora of self-published books out there, there's all probability that my book would get lost in the crowd.
What would be a better option, all things considered? | [
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58,832 | I am finishing my dissertation, and my advisor was highly critical of my use of "floating quotations" or "stand-alone quotations." She directed me to [a University of North Carolina webpage](https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/quotations/) with advice for undergrad writers.
A floating quotation is a quotation that does not explicitly state its attribution. Here is what the UNC page says about floating quotations.
>
> In general, avoid leaving quotes as sentences unto themselves. Even if you have provided some context for the quote, a quote standing alone can disrupt your flow. Take a look at this example:
>
>
>
> >
> > Hamlet denies Rosencrantz’s claim that thwarted ambition caused his depression. “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space” (Hamlet 2.2).
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> Standing by itself, the quote’s connection to the preceding sentence is unclear. There are several ways to incorporate a quote more smoothly.
>
>
>
I had never heard of this rule about floating quotations, nor had my wife, who was educated in a different part of the US. When I started looking into it, I found that the Chicago Style Guide did not mention floating quotations, nor did other mainstream style guides that I found.
However, I found several university writing webpages mention floating quotations as a problem.
In all the university writing webpages I have found, most of them suggest that the problem with floating quotations is a lack of clarity. However, the quote from the UNC page above is, to me, quite clear, there is no way to misinterpret it.
My question: are floating quotations a real problem, or is it a matter of personal preference? Is the proscription against their use universal, or is it just that some people think that this rule is good and assume that it is a universal rule? | [
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58,838 | For example, Wang and Zimmermann are writing a research paper together. In their paper, they want to refer to Zimmermann's previous work (possibly with other coauthors).
Should they write "In the second author's previous work, ..."
or "In Zimmerman's previous work,..."?
The second option is not making clear that they are referring to one of the present coauthors, since there are so many Zimmermann's in the world. Perhaps, the reader should figure that out by referring to the References list? | [
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58,843 | Perhaps the most formulaic plot framework has the protagonist as an underdog where he/she must overcome incredible odds. Simply to illustrate, consider: LotR (they are but mere hobbits). While the underdog typically has his day, often times the ordeal phase takes up half the book or more, as in Count of Monte Cristo.
I want to get a better understanding of what (if any) fairly mainstream examples we have in the literature about a protagonist that starts off powerful and stays powerful throughout (not succumbing to misfortune later as we might see in a tragedy). In this kind of plot framework, there would be little in terms of outright conflict. But perhaps there are ways to introduce suspense into the story by other means: I considered building suspense around who the protagonist will smash next but was slightly skeptical of this approach given it implicitly invites sympathy for antagonist(s) (unless we truly villify them from the onset).
Question
--------
Are there prominent titles out there that have a nearly omnipotent protagonist? And what suspense devices would create utility under this framework? | [
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58,850 | What I mean is black comedy (or dark humour if you want) is a subgenre of comedy that consists to make light of otherwise serious topics (in other words, serious and horrible things played for laughs).
The opposite would be drama based around making dark of otherwise comical topics (in other words, funny and great things played for drama).
I would call that white drama/lighthearted tragedy.
Also, could you give some more or less famous examples, please? The only one I can think is *Waiting For Godot* (1953, Ireland/France, Samuel Beckett). | [
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58,852 | A319: 200km
B737: 400km
vs
A319: 200km.
B737: 400km.
Which is correct? Period or no period in a bullet point list of numbers? | [
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58,855 | I'm currently writing a YA novel, and one of my sublots is a romance between the protagonist (A) and another supporting character (B). I introduce the two to each other early on, and they start out as friends before they are forced to team up with each other later on in the plot. There are a few other major male characters, but she specifically falls in love with B later on in the novel. However, I'm worried that readers will suspect this in the beginning, when A and B meet, and especially when they team up and spend a lot of time around each other.
I'm trying my best to avoid the "instalove" trope that's common in modern YA literature, but I still feel like the romance in my novel is going to be very predictable. | [
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