qid int64 1 2.78M | question stringlengths 2 66.6k | answers list | date stringlengths 10 10 | metadata list |
|---|---|---|---|---|
62,648 | In my book, the werewolves don't shape shift into humans, they're werewolves all the time. There are some werewolves that don't attack humans, but the majority does - those packs that don't live within miles of villages that have no clue that they're close. I can write the ones who don't attack very well, but I'm at a ... | [
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"text": "Research how wolves attack.\n\nOne important point is that wolves will probably not attack prey that seems too dangero... | 2022/07/04 | [
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62,656 | I've seen a number of people especially in business settings use hyphens after names while writing or addressing other individuals. Is this accurate? e.g. `John - I've been trying to reach you` or `Hi John - I've been trying to reach you` | [
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"text": "This is a very informal way of indicating a break. In fiction one would use it in dialog.\n\nConsequently it would be ... | 2022/07/05 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62656",
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62,658 | How should you visually describe in a comic a spell cast in a subtle and stealthy manner? In Star Wars, Jedi sometimes use jedi mind trick, but it's hard to tell for some people from a drawn image that a telepathic signal is sent to the victim. Is there a way to visually tell in an obvious way that such a stealthy and ... | [
{
"answer_id": 62661,
"author": "hszmv",
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"text": "So I'm going to the D&D system of magic which requires three components: Somatic (a gesture or motion, ala the handwa... | 2022/07/06 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62658",
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62,667 | Even if they are not super-geniuses, many villains are portrayed as cunning, charismatic, and manipulative, staying three steps ahead of the heroes at every turn.
But creating a good villain plan is difficult for both the villain and the writer. If the plan is flawless, the heroes need an ingenious strategy too or the... | [
{
"answer_id": 62668,
"author": "Joelle Boulet",
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"text": "I see a few options that can work.\n\n1. Specialized information\n--------------------------\n\nHave the flaw... | 2022/07/07 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62667",
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62,671 | My character needs to go see a psychiatrist, and as I am someone who is not that knowledgeable about the way psychiatrists talk to their patients, or manipulate them to get answers, or advice them, I don't believe I can write a good conversation between the two of them or at least a realistic one, but I also believe th... | [
{
"answer_id": 62692,
"author": "SFWriter",
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"text": "If there is a problem in the story, the problem is earlier in the story.\n\nIn your case, you are asking if not wr... | 2022/07/07 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62671",
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62,686 | I looked through a number of the site's questions to find an answer to my problem. The closest thing I could find was this:
[Is it acceptable to place a dash after a question mark?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/10675/is-it-acceptable-to-place-a-dash-after-a-question-mark?rq=1)
However, my question is a... | [
{
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"text": "This is based solely on my opinion/experience but, I am pretty sure I have seen that done before, and it has not b... | 2022/07/08 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62686",
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62,688 | Let's say I've written an episode-by-episode screenplay on my own time (I don't work for an animation studio). It's well-written and original, but because it hasn't already been published, it of course doesn't have a preexisting fanbase. I also haven't been involved in any prior projects. What are the odds that an anim... | [
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"text": "This is based solely on my opinion/experience but, I am pretty sure I have seen that done before, and it has not b... | 2022/07/09 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62688",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com",
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62,695 | Is it weak writing to have an evil character have the motivation of getting killed by the main character? Let's say his life goal is getting killed by the main character for the sake of getting killed by the main character, not to achieve something, but getting killed by the main character is the goal itself. Is that w... | [
{
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"text": "Such a motivation is deeply unusual.\n\nAs a consequence, it would need a lot of development and demonstration to be co... | 2022/07/09 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62695",
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62,696 | "[t]he company engaged..."
I read a quote earlier starting with these words, and I am unsure of the meaning of the square brackets encapsulating the "t".
A cursory search online doesn't seem to yield anything relevant. Aside from being used for [sic] or other words that were not part of the original quotation, this d... | [
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"text": "Basically, the square brackets indicate \"this quote was altered to make grammatical sense of the quotation in its new... | 2022/07/09 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62696",
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62,714 | I'm outlining a story and am all confused about motive and goal of my protagonist. She has been brought up to believe that she is weak and easily controlled. She yearns to teach her children to be strong (like she wishes she was) but has gotten into a situation where she is fully under the control of a domineering husb... | [
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"text": "I think the problem is that sometimes goals beget goals. You may need to keep asking \"why?\" a few times to get to the... | 2022/07/11 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62714",
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62,719 | I was thinking this for a while. When I watched Qohq Wicy back then, I really like how he has limited ammo making the scenes tense and thrilling. It was such a cool detail that I wanted to add in my stories but I feel limited when writing it and also having difficulty depicting some scenes. The type of story I wanted t... | [
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"text": "There are definitely audience members will poke fun at the endless ammo. However, there are still plenty of people who... | 2022/07/12 | [
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62,732 | In my fantasy epic, the protagonist meets a young, female thief who eventually become his partner in crime. She is part of a family business that involves theft, and she wants to go to give her family name a better reputation. In this case scenario, her parents are not dead or abusive, but in her culture, they need app... | [
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"text": "I'm not sure about the general case, but in your specific case, it's worth noting that thievery is a pretty dangero... | 2022/07/12 | [
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62,735 | When adapting a novel to a movie or a comic book, how do you choose which dialogues to pick and should you modify them at all? I am thinking that you can't just put all the dialogues, but which dialogues can be cut and what general principles should you follow when **choosing what to modify** in a dialogue picked from ... | [
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"text": "I'm not sure about the general case, but in your specific case, it's worth noting that thievery is a pretty dangero... | 2022/07/12 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62735",
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62,754 | What does (beat) refer to in a script and what other elements can we put instead of (beat)?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/r3yOT.jpg)
Right below "It's starting to feel like it", we see (beat), but it's like something outside of the dialogue and I am n... | [
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"text": "A beat is a pause in the dialog. It indicates he says the first part and then, after a bit, the second.\n\nIf you want ... | 2022/07/14 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62754",
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62,775 | The [romantic plot tumour](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RomanticPlotTumor) is a trope where a show or series or story has a bit of romance in it. However it soon becomes the main focus of the show and this sidelines the original premise of said story.
I do want to write a fanfiction which will be quite ... | [
{
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"text": "Don't think of the romance as separate from the rest of your story\n----------------------------------------... | 2022/07/15 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62775",
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62,792 | I am writing a fantasy novel in which I want the main character to die right around the middle of the book, only to resurface later with unexpected powers that apparently kept her alive -- something which should come across as a shock. I realize that bringing a character back so easily like this can take a lot of the e... | [
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"text": "I think you have to set things up in a way that in hindsight (with the reader knowing what everything means) it could h... | 2022/07/17 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62792",
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62,798 | I am currently working on my first serious story/book. I have written in the past, but I never really paid attention to the structure or word count or really anything that made a story, a story.
For this book, I have created a general outline of how I want the chapters to go, in terms of the plot and story events. Unf... | [
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"author": "Phil S",
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"text": "My first impression when reading through your questions is that you could do to read around story structure more bef... | 2022/07/18 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62798",
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62,805 | How do you draw the text bubbles for telepathic communication in comics? I don't recall having ever seen text bubbles for telepathic speech between 2 or more characters. I am especially interested to see how this is done when there's 3 or more characters, because I can't really think of a good way. Could you show some ... | [
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"text": "Perhaps a zig-zag (lightning bolt) line between puffy, cloud-shaped text bubbles. Drawing characters with eyes cl... | 2022/07/19 | [
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62,806 | <https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&profile=default&search=insource%3A+ship&ns0=1>
I was trying to use insource to find all terms related to ships, but obviously it didn't work, I am wondering if there are ways to achieve this that I am not aware of. I remember there were cat... | [
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"text": "Perhaps <https://relatedwords.org> might suit your needs. ([Here's a link for ship](https://relatedwords.org/relatedto/s... | 2022/07/19 | [
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62,809 | I'm currently doing my master thesis in Ecology and now writing my result section. I'm a non-native English writer and I would like to ask for some help structuring my sentences and how to become a better writer. The sample I provide is of my results. I would like to improve the 'flow' of my writing, now I feel I'm jus... | [
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"text": "Perhaps <https://relatedwords.org> might suit your needs. ([Here's a link for ship](https://relatedwords.org/relatedto/s... | 2022/07/19 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62809",
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62,812 | For example,
>
> The model shows a great divergence at zero momentum (see Fig. 5(c))
>
>
>
I am not sure if the last two "))" appear cluttered. I have seen suggestions of using [] on the outside but I have never seen any examples like that in academic writings. What should I do? | [
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"text": "This is largely context dependent and opinion based, however there is one rule: Readability. As per the answer to [T... | 2022/07/19 | [
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62,822 | I've been working on a story that follows the progression of a couple. The two were arranged to marry as young children, and meet again in their teens. I've been using quite a few time skips to shorten the period where they're first getting to know each other, but it seems splotchy. It's important to the story's setup,... | [
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"selected": true,
"text": "Like any story, you skip the boring parts (where nothing is really changing) and describe the scenes when something ... | 2022/07/21 | [
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62,825 | I've been trying to get back at writing stuff again and I'm currently, not-per-se stuck, but more so curious if people care to enlighten me on ways a character can acquire psychic powers.
At the time being, the only procedure I can think of is in a form of a head trauma that as a consequence rewires the brain.
I'm op... | [
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"text": "There are many ways a story could justify giving a person psychic abilities. Broadly, I'd say psychic powers could be a... | 2022/07/22 | [
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62,835 | I am writing a fantasy novel and I need to come up with a good riddle at the end of a dungeon. There's a sentient statue that asks a question and I couldn't come up with anything, so I was thinking of taking a riddle from a Greek mythological story.
>
> “What being has four legs, then two, and then three?”
>
>
>
... | [
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"text": "Ideally, the riddle and its answer resonate thematically with the story. If you are asking at the *end* of the dungeon... | 2022/07/23 | [
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62,838 | I am working on this short espionage story, and I have one character, an agent, who is unable to bring himself to do harm let alone kill another person. He's never done the deed himself. In my storyboard he'll encounter a situation where his partner does kill somebody because of necessity (If he doesn't, they'll die--t... | [
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"text": "> \n> ...an agent, who is unable to bring himself to do harm let alone kill another person. He's never done the de... | 2022/07/23 | [
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62,844 | A reading a modern paperback book on Amazon I came across this:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MbdlH.png)
As I was reading, I had to look twice at the words "fist" and "fire," but sure enough, the print was not an "f" and "i", but the fi ligature. Look at ... | [
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"text": "In digital printing, how ligatures work is part of the font definition. To get an idea of to what extent you can push t... | 2022/07/23 | [
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62,848 | Can we use the expressions **"Truth be told"** or **"To tell the truth"** to describe something factual in our opinion in written arguments?
Example:
>
> *Truth be told*, I think no one is winning this war.
>
>
>
The very phrase has the verb "told" in it which refers to someone speaking. So, can it only be used ... | [
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"text": "This is asking two different questions so I'll answer them in turn.\n\nFirst, yes, you can use \"truth be told\" in wr... | 2022/07/24 | [
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62,849 | For the uninitiated; *Visual Novels* (abbreviated as *VN*) are in layman terms a type of game with it's story presented in plain-text accompanied with illustrations of characters and environments, music, and some form of capability to interact with the story by picking choices that will alter the overall plot (I'm awar... | [
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"text": "It is definitely possible to create books where people can make choices and take different story routes. They're called... | 2022/07/24 | [
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62,855 | In my story, there are several relationships between humans and non-humans. While there are the usual with vampires and werewolves, there are also with anthromorphic animals as well.
Seeing how despite being able to walk and talk like humans, they are still a completely different animal species. When writing, how far c... | [
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"text": "[Captain Kirk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Kirk) and [Commander Riker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William... | 2022/07/25 | [
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62,859 | I was trying to work on the worldbuilding of my story. The concept of fictional nations being based on real ones is nothing new, but it is fun to do. Usually, when there's a nation based on actual nations, the culture of said nation is also incorporated into the worldbuilding, to make it clear which nation it is based ... | [
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"text": "Just do it; if you are aware of any controversy, address it in the book with more fiction.\n\nThe way this is often... | 2022/07/25 | [
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62,866 | Would you consider it too late to introduce major characters at the midpoint of book 1 in a trilogy?
By major characters I mean characters that aren’t the protagonist, don’t have POV chapters (my book is first person), but are with the protagonist for the majority of the trilogy and are essential to the main storyline... | [
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"text": "A trilogy is basically a three act story, and the first book is basically the first act.\n\nSo no; the middle of the... | 2022/07/25 | [
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62,875 | Currently I'm outlining a novel, mostly for fun, based in 9th century Norway. The closest to writing Old Norse names I can get is by using Icelandic characters like the ð and þ and the occasional á etc. Could I then use, for example, the name Guðrún, or should I instead Latinize it to Guthrun?
In that same vein: I'm w... | [
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62,876 | My protagonist is crafty, resourceful, cunning, and principled. She finds herself trapped both physically (due to seclusion in a remote area of wilderness) and psychologically (by a controlling partner she had previously thought was virtuous). She willingly entered this situation but was unaware that it had been morphi... | [
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"text": "Because love is blind.\n======================\n\nIf s/he saw the trap coming, that means she didn’t trust her o... | 2022/07/26 | [
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62,898 | <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFvf6Elp3D0>
So I would like to write a science-fiction novel where the idea of "The Dark Forest" is used. The idea of "The Dark Forest" comes from Liu Cixin. So is it ok for me to use that idea and name it "The Dark Forest" in the novel without explicitly naming Liu Cixin in any way o... | [
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62,902 | I wrote a book about two years ago with almost no prior planning or outlining done before the writing. I've since matured more and figured out that the audience for my book changes from chapter to chapter. I'm not sure how to remedy this- some themes that are non-negotiable in this book are more mature, but I feel that... | [
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62,905 | <https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/ellipses.html>
I thought it was an ellipses, but ellipses only typically have three dots. Are there good use cases or is there a good justification to using four dots instead of three?
I cam across a poem by Rupert Brooke and it uses four dots instead of three.
<https://mypoetics... | [
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62,911 | Someone asked me for a genealogy chart to put in the novel she plans to write. She gave me very few details. I assume the details she didn't give me are not important to the plot.
However, a couple of the details she did give are hard for me to fit into the historical context without it seeming weird. Others seem to r... | [
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62,914 | I am trying to write the story for a game. It starts off well, only to end up really being horror. The goal is supposed to slowly become like that, but without the player figuring it out until it is too late. The type of plot is man vs. environment during a zombie outbreak, and my goal is to slowly introduce the terror... | [
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"text": "I would think that any game advertised as 'survive the zombie apocalypse' would be considered at least horror adjacent.... | 2022/07/31 | [
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62,918 | I have a published (ebook & paperback) novel which was published in 2015 by a UK publishing house. The text was never carefully or properly proofed and there were many printing problems. Net result was a poor quality piece of work which appeared on various platforms and retail outlets, but never sold.
I have revised th... | [
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62,935 | Consider this paragraph
>
> The twilight is small but distinctly visible. The gloomy sky is staring down at the parched roads as the storm began thundering. Gradually, the moon is crescendoing into existence as the sun is waning away.
>
>
>
It uses a lot of 'the's. How can I remove the repetition of 'the' from my... | [
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"text": "If I *wanted* to write this without using \"the\":\n\n> \n> Twilight begins, small but distinctly visible. A gloomy... | 2022/08/03 | [
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62,941 | I've been given an advice by a writer. The advice is to only tell the reader a character's plan if it's going to fail
I was told this is an incredibly useful advice. The rationale is that if your character is going to fail, then knowing the plan ahead of time and watching it fall apart is driving the tension. However,... | [
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"text": "The problem with telling the plan if it succeeds as planned is that it's *redundant*. Consider how seldom a story, howe... | 2022/08/03 | [
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62,946 | When I say "unlikable", I mean the character is too unbearable to read/watch. I was told that if people need to take breaks from whatever media they're consuming because of a character’s attitude or actions, it becomes an issue for the author.
It isn't to say that morally horrible characters are bad. I was told there’... | [
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"text": "I suppose it's a bad idea, except when it isn't. :)\n\nFor new writers, learning to write characters that readers ... | 2022/08/04 | [
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62,953 | I've been told that a lot of bad female characters are written mostly to be a support to another character, as a love interest, a cheerleader, an end goal, etc. I was told that a character being defined by how they interact with another character is going to leave them shallow and disappointing.
It is for common femal... | [
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"text": "It's very difficult to write a character who stays in one role as complex because complexity requires different facets... | 2022/08/06 | [
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62,963 | A horror story I am writing involves the protagonist in another world. It is like an isekai, but it is horror and the protagonist is trying to survive as long as possible.
The main story surrounds the main character exploring weird lands and his interactions with the locals. The other major part is the setting's world... | [
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"text": "The most effective way to introduce an immersive world is to write your story from the perspective of a character or a ... | 2022/08/07 | [
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62,970 | I've always felt weird about death flags in stories. I don't know exactly how I feel about them.
For example, a soldier character reminiscing to his buddy while on the frontlines about his wife and kids and how he's going back home to them while opening up a locket with their picture in it. Sometimes it's done less on... | [
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"text": "In the real world, death is often sudden and unfair. Especially in a story with a dark tone, any character c... | 2022/08/07 | [
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62,971 | I don't like then sentence I have just written:
"If the mat is too thick, then it becomes difficult to balance."
I believe the meaning is clear, but is it bad grammar? Specifically, I can't figure out what the word "it" doing. "It" seems to refer to the task of standing, but that isn't revealed in the sentence. It is... | [
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62,978 | Background
----------
I have planned out my (German language) novel and its 16 chapters in considerable detail (for my standards). But as for the sequence of presenting those of the chapters that are contemporaneous, I sometimes feel uncertain.
One of my subplots revolves around a group of people who explore caves an... | [
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"text": "Giving out clues ahead of the protagonists gives away interest and thrill as a con, but it allows space to elaborate on... | 2022/08/08 | [
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62,992 | I want to write a story where the main culprit is controlling someone to commit crimes. Is there any way like medicine or psychology to control someone? | [
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"text": "In fiction you get 1 for free\n-----------------------------\n\nIn the podcast [How Weird is too Weird](https://... | 2022/08/09 | [
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62,999 | One of my male characters is going through severe depression that will last about six months. Despite this, he clearly tries to make sure that his depression does not impede his life or relationship.
As a South Asian Man, in a modern context, he tries really hard despite crying, trouble sleeping or feeling moody at ra... | [
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"text": "This is a broad question (too broad?) so I can only offer a partial answer. I'll focus on this part:\n\n> \n> his ro... | 2022/08/10 | [
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63,004 | How do you kill a loved characters without angering your readers? I think the Last of Us Part 2 had a lot of detractors because of how they handled the death of one of its main characters. I think it was because it was shocking, immediate and brutal. There were also mentions of how the character who killed him was unli... | [
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63,005 | So I wish to create a story to be presented in a visual novel style in a game, but the main premise is that the player's perspective regularly changes at the end of each time loop.
I have a fixed time loop (eg. a week) in a small rural town that keep repeating waiting for a different outcome. The player's perspective ... | [
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"text": "In this scenario, I'd think this were something of an anthology game or movie, but considering its the same ch... | 2022/08/11 | [
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63,019 | My story is simple (if it is any help, it is entirely in first person.) A man wakes up in an abandoned mineshaft, with no company other than the monsters that are there with him, and a few notes from other people who were there, vaguely describing the threats he faces. Adding any other characters would nullify the exis... | [
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"text": "Castaway was exactly what I was thinking, just like @Towr posted. Better explanation of my thoughts are make y... | 2022/08/12 | [
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63,031 | I've been writing a book for two years now, and it feels like the plot could work better if I include a mafia, like a lot of things would come together if I include that my male lead is the underboss of a mob. However, it also has fantasy elements like hell and demons etc. This hell is unique in some ways.
Initially, ... | [
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"text": "Mafia and dark fantasy seems like an interesting and a beautiful realm of it's own. For some reason, I am reminded of B... | 2022/08/13 | [
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63,039 | How do you write an extremely powerful main character? I have this character who's a literal God, and none of his enemies are as nearly as powerful as him. It's like in the anime Overlord, and I was wondering how you would have to write that character, because the issue is that his personality doesn't change and doesn'... | [
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"text": "Being incredibly overpowered can come with its own consequences.\n\nAre there any downsides to this power? Th... | 2022/08/13 | [
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63,041 | I have characters at the back of my head that are inspired by other characters, from other stories I've seen in the media. They don't stay the same. Back then their character is quite similar to their inspirations (I'm talking about characters inspired by another character.) As I start to grow up, they start to change,... | [
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"text": "No. This is not a bad thing. It is especially not a bad thing if this deviation, or character change, happens on the pa... | 2022/08/14 | [
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63,044 | When a character outsmarts another character and that character explains how he did it, should you mention things that weren't shown or alluded to?
Let's say you have character A, and character A was able to predict everything character B was going to do and was basically able to completely walk over him and not leave... | [
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63,049 | I know this is probably going to get me a down vote, but I've had this idea for a while. I wanted to know if it would work or if it would be an awful failure. Every character is the same person from alternate universes; they are brought together to fight some unknown evil. I'm currently working on other things, so I ha... | [
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63,059 | Accurately portraying a character's emotions is a huge part of getting an audience to like them as a person. But the character I am writing is essentially a living computer. They have no emotions to speak of. Essentially, they're an empty shell.
So, my question is, how can you demonstrate a character's emotionlessness... | [
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"text": "We anticipate other peoples emotive responses in situations. If we encounter a person who doesn't emote in ways we anti... | 2022/08/16 | [
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63,068 | Let’s get this out of the way. Dialogue, much like characterisation, has never been my strongest suit as a writer. I’m brilliant at writing prose. Action setpieces are a joy for me to write. And everyone I’ve shared my work with has nothing but positive things to say about my worldbuilding talents.
But making strong c... | [
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"text": "Don't worry. Everyone struggles with writing dialogue. Don't get yourself down by constantly comparing yours... | 2022/08/17 | [
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63,078 | [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OR2V3.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/znksV.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VcRk5.png)
[![enslaver 4](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cmOhp.png... | [
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"text": "How does the \"Leviathan Kings\" sound?\nAlso, if they each have different abilities, I would name them based ... | 2022/08/17 | [
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63,081 | Whenever I write any story, even with ideas that could constitute a novel, and with as many as three subplots, it always comes out to, at most, 30 pages, and a portion of that 30 pages often consists of loads of uselessly deep descriptions that add virtually nothing to the story itself. Even then, it always seems very ... | [
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"text": "It sounds to me you are writing intellectually, and not emotionally. And it sounds like you are doing a lot of \"tel... | 2022/08/18 | [
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63,093 | I would like to write a detailed structured outline of a certain topic, for organizing my ideas. "Structured" means that the outline should end up looking something like this:
```
1. aaa
2. bbb
2.1 ccc
2.2 ddd
3. eee
```
The program should
* do the numbering automatically (and renumber if pieces are dragged aro... | [
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"text": "Perhaps you can check out Obsidian, it's a very useful HTML based program, completely free and customizable. It ha... | 2022/08/19 | [
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63,099 | When writing in limited third-person, would it pull a reader out of the story too much by having a memory from another character's perspective for a while? *(Which I realise would make the story not limited).*
For example: The narrator narrates Character A for the whole book, but Character B wants to tell Character A ... | [
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"text": "I've seen stories where they have a whole chapter dedicated to a different character. It will help with develo... | 2022/08/19 | [
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63,103 | Because Chadwick Boseman, who played Fluck Yanvhir, has passed away, I am assuming that his character will be shown to have passed away in *Fluck Yanvhir: Wakanda Forever*. But I'm wondering: is it okay to kill your main character off-screen, and make the other characters mention how tragic his death was? Is this a tot... | [
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"text": "Real life forcing you to cope with a death is not actually a factor in whether it works, alas.\n\nIt is normally very d... | 2022/08/19 | [
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63,109 | I am writing a novel and in it, the characters are using a book cipher based on a collection of classic novels. In this draft, the main characters are given the first, or last, line of the book in order to find the right book. When they find the correct book, I will identify the title of the book and author. The conten... | [
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"text": "If you look in the book, there'll normally be contact information on one of the first few pages. If you want to... | 2022/08/20 | [
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63,124 | Is there a logistical or practical reason why one should write a feature length screenplay (about 100 pages) rather than shorter screenplays (about 10-40 pages?) I'm considering this from the point of view of building experience, as well as from any advantage that either might bring. | [
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"text": "Chicken or Egg\n--------------\n\nThere is no 'correct' narrative length for stories.\n\nHowever there are video ... | 2022/08/21 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63124",
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63,139 | I have this sentence in a flash fiction. My alpha/beta readers are unsure if the wording is correct, and I am starting to doubt myself.
>
> As I entered, I picked a mirror ahead of me and locked eyes with my reflection, ignoring the infinite kaleidoscope of me’s beyond.
>
>
>
Is there a better way to describe thi... | [
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"text": "The plural of me is accepted as *mes*.\n\nI suggest changing one of the uses of *me*, however, as the repeti... | 2022/08/23 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63139",
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63,141 | Is there a good way to store worldbuilding information so that I can get a quick reference and overview without having to go through an entire doc? I don't need to store it, I can store it in a word document, but I would like to organize the information so that everything or a lot of the major ideas can be seen at a gl... | [
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"text": "Store it in Word, but teach yourself to use Tags. AKA keywords, labels, all the same thing.\n\nUse pairings. So at f... | 2022/08/24 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63141",
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63,147 | I need to use the term "software as a service", which is abbreviated as SaaS. (There are other ancillary terms as well like Platform as a Service, Functions as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service and so many more.)
Is there an industry-wide agreed upon consensus to capitalize/hyphenate these when you spell them out... | [
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"text": "The correct form is \"software as a service.\" It is simply a phrase that describes the software.\n\nSome people (incorr... | 2022/08/25 | [
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63,158 | I was recently reading my UK edition of the book Spells by Aprilynne Pike, and was most amused to come across the word "occutrousers":
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IsiJz.jpg)
>
> But *I* am safe there, as are its other occutrousers.
>
>
>
I beli... | [
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"text": "You can do that, but you need to make sure to add a space before and after the word to make sure it's not connected to ... | 2022/08/26 | [
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63,160 | In the story I'm writing, the character behaves differently when they're spending time with their mother - they are conflicted. They idolise their mother on the one hand, but as they have grown up (in dwarf years 45, in human years that'd be ~15-18) they realise their mother hasn't always been there as a *parent* and w... | [
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"text": "I'd suggest a passive voice; she just doesn't try to fight. Also, you need more action and description, you are wr... | 2022/08/26 | [
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63,170 | This is a big issue between my husband and me. He says always put a comma after a name, I say only when a break is needed. Example:
>
> A review of the complaint filed by Intrej, shows that Linnea, and Zotn, did in fact violate state laws when they were covering up the crimes of officer Zotns, and that Intrej, in fac... | [
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"text": "Proper nouns are, for punctuation purposes, exactly like common nouns. Since, therefore, you would write:\n\n> \n> A r... | 2022/08/27 | [
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63,176 | Example:
>
> “An isotope is determined by an atom’s number of neutrons,” she read to herself. “How many neutrons does uranium-235?” **She looked down at her periodic table, searching for uranium. She recognized its location with atomic number 92 before creating a simple formula to determine how many neutrons there we... | [
{
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"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "Your example is ok.\n\nI assume the bold is there to emphasize the part of the text you're asking about and not to be p... | 2022/08/29 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63176",
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63,203 | <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5gVDDpviKo>
Should you make all information available so that your readers know everything that transpired at the end of the book?
I am asking because there's this show called Evangelion and this show is almost impossible to follow at times, because some information are kept out of t... | [
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"text": "(Full disclosure, I have not watched any Evangelion)\n\nWhat you're describing is a problem that frequently happens ... | 2022/09/03 | [
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63,204 | I made lots of characters, though I put more focus to some than others. This is because of how at the base of these characters they have concepts that they revolve with. And I want to make sure I can incorporate them in the story. However since I focus on these characters and their concepts too much, it prevented me fr... | [
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"text": "From what I'm reading the problem you're having is that you're worried that your character is becoming so convolute... | 2022/09/03 | [
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63,205 | How should you refer to modern words and concepts like DNA and neutrons in a fantasy book? I see people use DNA and neutrons in TV shows where the setting doesn't allow for it for simplicity sake, but if you want to have proper worldbuilding and a realistic world, how should you refer to those concepts? What words shou... | [
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"text": "What do they know, and how do they know it?\n\nBear in mind that there were no terms for either one in any language for... | 2022/09/03 | [
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63,225 | Can you write a short story that's only an exposition for worldbuilding?
Let's say that you have a collection of science fiction short stories. In order to have strong worldbuilding, is it possible to only do exposition in some short stories, meaning telling and not showing, so you can show some important things in mo... | [
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"text": "I don't think so. Exposition is not a **story**, a story has a hero, with a problem, that suffers to finally find a... | 2022/09/07 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63225",
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63,230 | Is there a website that can take prompts/context & create short stories? | [
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"text": "I don't think so. Exposition is not a **story**, a story has a hero, with a problem, that suffers to finally find a... | 2022/09/07 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63230",
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63,235 | I have a couple of characters that I want to group together on multiple pages. Each could be about different information.
Another example would be, with 1 page for each period of time.
* Year 1: Alive: [A B C] Dead:... | [
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"text": "I don't think so. Exposition is not a **story**, a story has a hero, with a problem, that suffers to finally find a... | 2022/09/09 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63235",
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63,251 | I'm a Chinese writer. Chinese people always tend to refer people by their full names, so the first name last name thing shouldn't be an issue. But now I'm working on a novel with a character from the US.
Here is the scenario. Let's call the protagonist Joe, and the character from the US Upam Bakub. When Joe first met ... | [
{
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"text": "I always change the name, once it is known.\n\n> \n> \\*\\*The waiter approached the table.\n> \n> \n> \n\n> \n> \"... | 2022/09/10 | [
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63,257 | >
> I bound the spell to a different domain of existence, which allowed me
> to change the secondary effect of gravity well, which make me immune
> to any gravitational effect created by the spell.
>
>
>
This makes sense, but it's a bit vague and in a fantasy setting it would sound weird. I am wondering if this is... | [
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"text": "We don't do writing reviews here.\n\nIt doesn't matter, in a fantasy book, if you \"explain\" magic; in many ways i... | 2022/09/11 | [
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63,266 | I'm making a story about a guy who travels through many worlds. There's also a world that he stays in for a larger period than others, with changing hierarchy, powers, laws, and so on.
I know that many stories describe many different locales, like *One Piece* where there are tons of islands, but the world-building doe... | [
{
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"text": "There's nothing inherently wrong or bad about the idea, and several stories across various media have been very... | 2022/09/12 | [
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63,277 | I'm writing a story with an American character and a British character. I'm contemplating having the characters use the regional spellings when it comes to words like realise/realize or favourite/favorite, depending from who's point of view I'm telling the story at the moment (I swap back and forth between the chapters... | [
{
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"text": "As long as it's in quotes, use the spellings and dialects that would be natural in the geographical locations that th... | 2022/09/13 | [
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63,280 | In fantasy and science fiction, there's often either magic or advanced technology. Often, these are integral parts of the story and also would seem trivial for someone in the universe. However, for readers who don't live in that universe, such as you or me, would have no way of understanding it without an explanation.
... | [
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"text": "Nobody does that. You never explain a device in deep detail, especially if it is something in daily use.\n\nIn your exa... | 2022/09/14 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63280",
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63,281 | I have my story plotted out, but as I’ve been writing, I’ve realized that my main character’s backstory is swimming with potential. I’ve been weaving it in, slowly revealing details and flashbacks throughout the main story, but the deeper I go, the more I wonder if I should have started further back in his story since ... | [
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"text": "Nobody does that. You never explain a device in deep detail, especially if it is something in daily use.\n\nIn your exa... | 2022/09/14 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63281",
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63,288 | "Illegal immigrant" is often used by conservatives to refer to a person who enters a country in violation of that country's laws; "undocumented immigrant" is often used by liberals. Conservatives often criticize the term "undocumented" because they believe it underemphasizes the illegality of their immigration; liberal... | [
{
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"text": "> \n> Is there a way to refer to undocumented/illegal immigrants that is seen as unbiased by both liberals and conservat... | 2022/09/15 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63288",
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63,310 | I have a character who's being abused by his father. While most of the abuse is only implied/referenced and readers instead see the fallout or emotional/physical effects of it, there are a few scenes where his father is verbally abusive toward him. The issue is that the dialogue always feels cliche/cheesy, almost like ... | [
{
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"text": "My 2¢: a bully is trying to intimidate, a father is not 'intimidated' by his own child.\n\nHere's my attempt to ... | 2022/09/18 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63310",
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63,319 | Can you make a story compelling enough for a large audience if every character is evil? I thought about this, but most popular stories have some good characters, I am wondering if it's even possible to make a story compelling enough for a large audience if all of your characters are evil, and there's no good in them, n... | [
{
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"text": "I doubt that a large audience would be interested in a story where every character is evil. Let's start by as... | 2022/09/20 | [
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63,322 | If you throw a party for 100 people and it ends up with only 5 people showing up, it looks like an over-spent party. It shows that the money has been wasted but it's also unintentionally.
Can I also say, it's an(a):
>
> extravagant party , Lavish party, or squandered party?
>
>
>
Is there an exact *one-word syno... | [
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63,323 | On a recent review of an academic paper, a reviewer has pointed out that we sometimes use lower case letter at the start of expressions, and that we should check our tables in particular. True enough, I normally start a table row with a lower case letter, as I think this looks better.
An example of how I would use low... | [
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"author": "Laurel",
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"text": "APA uses [sentence case](https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/sentence-case) for both ro... | 2022/09/20 | [
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63,339 | When you were raised in a remote town in Europe, there really isn't much that you've experienced.
I'm 21 and I often struggle with writing because I just do not know how 'these things' work. I can't write about a character going on a cruise, or about a bankteller, or about a broken bike. Sometimes your story takes you... | [
{
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"text": "Research, or detailed imagination (not so easy), is part of writing.\n\nYou might try writing, indirectly, about yo... | 2022/09/21 | [
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63,344 | The Harlem Renaissance has changed America in a \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ way.
I'm trying to make the sentence sound professional. Here is what I had at first: The Harlem Renaissance has changed America in a great way. But it doesn't sound like something a professional writer would write.
For those who don't know, the Harlem ... | [
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"text": "Research, or detailed imagination (not so easy), is part of writing.\n\nYou might try writing, indirectly, about yo... | 2022/09/21 | [
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63,357 | The question is whether the dialog should be written at all if the dialog during a sex scene doesn't serve any purpose. There's also this notion that a writer might feel shame when writing the dialog during a sex scene - should the writer ignore that impulse or should he act upon it? I see a lot of sex scenes in comics... | [
{
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"text": "Which is steamier, having two characters simply silently going through the motions of this or actively commu... | 2022/09/22 | [
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63,370 | In my epic fantasy, the secondary protagonist goes through tragedy. Near the middle, the group is captured by the enemy, and she is forced to watch her girlfriend get slowly executed in an extremely brutal manner. They managed to escape, but she is heavily traumatized and she almost loses her mind. Eventually, she ends... | [
{
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"selected": true,
"text": "I would say that there can't be a definitive and quantifiable answer to this question. It depends on the perso... | 2022/09/25 | [
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63,377 | I mostly write fantasy, and I need to improve writing scenes between characters that are not action. For example, a scene where two characters are eating breakfast and talking about training later that day. | [
{
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"author": "Amadeus",
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"selected": true,
"text": "I'd adopt a trick from the movie industry.\n\nThe more cerebral the conversation, the more outlandish the setting. T... | 2022/09/26 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63377",
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63,385 | >
> Because Acme Inc. didn't deliver the item to Joe, he sued them.
>
>
>
>
> Because Acme Inc. didn't deliver the item to Joe, he sued it.
>
>
>
Which is correct? "Them" sounds right, but because a corporation is a separate legal entity, not merely a group of shareholders, "it" seems legally correct. (Perhap... | [
{
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"author": "Dmann",
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"text": "Technically, corporations have legal personhood so pronouns might not be incorrect for them. However you can avoid th... | 2022/09/26 | [
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63,404 | I am new to creative writing, and have been trying to come up with a metaphor to illustrate the difficulty of doing in an environment where everyone is acting against you. So far, I have come up with the following metaphors:
"like trying to run up a hill in rollerblades"
* I don't care for this metaphor because it do... | [
{
"answer_id": 63407,
"author": "Mousentrude",
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"text": "I think you’re looking for a simile rather than a metaphor, so I’ll answer on that basis.\n\nYou say that your ... | 2022/09/29 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63404",
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63,411 | I am about halfway through my story, and I realized I haven't brought in very much of my character's backstory. Any tips on where to bring that in, and how? | [
{
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"text": "There are several ways to bring in backstory.\n\nIn the first Hijrp Potfeq book, the first chapter occurs ten years... | 2022/09/29 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63411",
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63,413 | My short story is from a third person POV, but I wanted to write a chapter in which the protagonist is doing a monologue that will tell details of her traumatic past, being kidnapped by a pedophile, instead of just writing a flashback. So how can I do it without making it look like the character is just narrating a bor... | [
{
"answer_id": 63417,
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"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "For starters, you need to think about what the character is feeling when recounting this tale. Do they look ... | 2022/09/30 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63413",
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63,419 | In Star Wars, people were mad because of how the writers decided to subvert expectations by making Luku Htyqalnef behave in an unexpected way, and then there's how Chainsaw Man subverted expectation by making the final boss be pretty much irrelevant to the whole story even though the writer kept foreshadowing the final... | [
{
"answer_id": 63422,
"author": "Leon Conrad",
"author_id": 8127,
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"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "This isn't an easy question to answer.\n\nAny attempt to answer it will have to address two aspects: the qualitat... | 2022/09/30 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/63419",
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