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Q&A

Posts tagged voice

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Q&A Is it possible to narrate a novel in a faux-historical style without alienating the reader?

One thing that often annoys me in historical fiction or fantasy books is the dissonance between the writing style and the events and historical period described in the book. The writing is usually ...

6 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by PoorYorick‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to distinguish two different voices in one book?

A relative (who is no longer living) wrote a number of autobiographical pieces which I would like to publish in a book. I would like to include four or five chapters written by myself, that would s...

1 answer  ·  posted 7y ago by aparente001‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Describing the differences between languages

To help create descriptive differences in the way my characters talk I am looking for a list of how each language sounds. For example the German language has lots of clusters of consonants, and co...

1 answer  ·  posted 8y ago by Jimmery‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Should I completely eliminate passive voice

I have read that a lot of passive voice deadens the story to 2 dimensional even if you are just trying to show something that takes time when you use the passive voice. I quite often use passive v...

2 answers  ·  posted 9y ago by Caters‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question novel voice
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Q&A Fiction Novels & Active vs. Passive Voice

Before I launch into this, I've perused these threads and they don't quite answer the specific question I have in mind: When to keep the passive voice and when to remove it When *should* I use pa...

2 answers  ·  posted 10y ago by Mike Hofer‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question fiction voice
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Q&A When mentioning two people in a sentence, what's the proper way to use a pronoun to reference the first?

Example: A fighter is someone who fights for the pleasure of the spectator, against his or her own safety. How can I clearly show that his or her refers to the fighter and not the master?

2 answers  ·  posted 10y ago by Shamoon‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question voice
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Q&A How do I differentiate between the "voices" of my characters in a multi-character POV?

I'm currently writing a novel with 3-4 character POVs in it - two male, two female. Each have different upbringings, different cultural backgrounds, different professions, different motivators and ...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by Bumble Bee‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Is active or passive voice more common in scientific writing?

I am choosing between two sentences: We display the values of X in Table 1. The values of X are displayed in Table 1. The first is more action-oriented, the second is more passive but focuses o...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by mommomonthewind‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Alternatives to second-person POV narration in RPG settings

I am someone with no formal writing background, who has come to love writing for the fantasy adventure role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons (fifth edition) during my free time. I am currently ru...

3 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by System‭  ·  edited 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Where to find primary sources for getting into historical character? (voicing)

What sites, libraries, or other organizations have strong, easy-to-browse collections of letters, diaries, and other primary sources that are great for authors doing research for historical fiction...

1 answer  ·  posted 4y ago by wordsworth‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Writing in a Christian voice

I'm Jewish. My middle-grade fantasy novel is very Jewish. Most of my characters are either Jews or converts/future converts or people with at least one Jewish grandparent. But some are not. My ...

5 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Cyn‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A What points should a "Character Interview" method for character building hit?

What should a character interview contain to be successful where the goals are: characters with strong voice who are established with a distinct 'personhood' (?) and are generally interesting to fo...

5 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Kirk‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A What should I do if I can't properly formulate the personality of one of my characters in my novel?

In my novel, my protagonist joins a team with four other characters to go on a quest. Each character in the team is supposed to contribute to the journey in someway and all are mentioned in a proph...

5 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Nsim‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Intentionally misspelling words in dialogue

I have a piece of dialogue which sounds great in my head, and the way the character says it is important, but it never looks right when I type it out. At first I tried this: “Looking and lookin...

4 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by Grace‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How do I stop my writing sounding like a bad imitation of whatever author I've just been reading?

I like to read across a variety of authors, genres, and publication dates. Whenever I sit down to write something of my own immediately after marathoning a book or series, I tend to unconsciously u...

5 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Kitkat‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A What are the drawbacks of writing too much in the active voice?

I always hear people say, "Write in the active voice," so I decided to eliminate passive voice from my writing (as much as possible). It made my writing stronger, but I wonder: Does writing too muc...

1 answer  ·  posted 8y ago by Alexandro Chen‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question technique style voice
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Q&A When should I avoid the passive voice? When might I use it?

An opinion exists that overusing of the passive voice can make writing harder for reading and understanding. Is it true for all kinds of writing? How to follow this advice without overemphasizing ...

2 answers  ·  posted 13y ago by rem‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question style voice
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Q&A Book on (character) voice

Any book recommendations that teach you how to make sure each character sounds different in dialogue and is recognizable even without dialogue tags? Any book tips to learn more about character deve...

0 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by Abidabiwriti‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Is using a different voice for protagonist's narration and dialogue ok?

My protagonist uses a lot of extensive vocabulary and is quite verbose. The novel I am writing is a first-person narrative, and my protagonist is the narrator of the novel. An extensive vocabulary...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Abhishek Dey‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question voice protagonist
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Q&A Can I use the passive voice to avoid referring to myself in a scientific report?

I'm writing a report for a piece of University coursework, but I understand that I should avoid referring to myself as "me" or "I". I've seen an example piece in which the author occasionally refer...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Ambidextroid‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Where can I find information on how different genres are conventionally written?

I'm having a very hard time finding a list and examples of stylistic subgenre conventions. To be specific: how genre writing impacts things like sentence length, dialogue, the tone of adjectives, ...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by user49466‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question genre style voice
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Q&A Is it acceptable to use synonyms to achieve rhythm?

There are some works that have a certain kind of voice, which is due to their rhythm. But is this due only to word order and like things, or do their authors actually choose synonyms to achieve rhy...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by g.arbia777‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Using the Voice wisely

Of course, there aren't any rules in writing. But when something is used in exaggeration (or even Isn't used at all!) without prudence, it can ruins everything. A voice is like a guide to see the ...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by Hanilucas‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Is the strategy described here an effective one, to distinguish character voice?

I have roughly 30 speaking characters; about ten speak often enough that their voices should be well defined. I have compiled, from web sources, various considerations when building distinct charac...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by DPT‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question characters voice
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Q&A Using fake swear words without them seeming out of place to the reader

This is not a question about slang, but about swearing and word creation. I have a character who uses swear words, and this is part of his voice. I do not use real swear words. I want the sense of...

7 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by DPT‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A voice over or off screen for AI in a TV script

I'm writing a sci-fi script for a T.V. pilot (my first) in which there is, initially, an AI (that runs a spaceship) with no avatar (that comes later). It is not a narration when that "character" sp...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by Kamal‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question voice dialogue
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Q&A Is there a hack to bring out your "true" voice?

I've just approved my typeset manuscript and re-reading the book, I'm aware that it sounds very far away from my internal voice. Whilst it has all of the elements in practice, the colour and fluenc...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Brereton‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question editing style voice
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Q&A What's it called?

As a novelist my preference is for what I call an 'active narrator'. The terminology confuses most as they think I'm talking about sentence construction and the benefits of 'active' or over 'passiv...

0 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Surtsey‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question voice
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Q&A Active voice in situations where the subject is unknown

In a situation where a POV character isn't lucid enough to see or interpret what's going on around them, I find myself constantly describing things either in passive voice, or by using the word 'so...

1 answer  ·  posted 7y ago by Typoglyphic‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Appropriate use of outdated vocabulary and terms?

I'm in the process of planning a story right now, without the intention of sharing it it with others, but I would like it to be comprehensible if I do. It's set in the 1880s and is formatted like a...

1 answer  ·  posted 7y ago by Wendigo King‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A How can one not let their voice show through in all the characters?

I was critiquing a friend's novel and I noticed that all the characters seem to have the voice of my friend. Speech fillers, vocabulary, sentence structure all seems the same throughout. How c...

4 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by AJL‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Question style voice
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Q&A How to write a sick character?

So, in my story, a main character gets sick with a virus. (Not a real one). I alternate POV's, and she is one of my favorite to write. I'm pretty sure her mindset would change slightly. But how? Pl...

0 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by DJFluffy‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Tips on writing grit

I'm writing up a new story (which I've asked for help on in a few other places) which is a little outside my forte. The majority of my current work is saturday-morning cartoon stuff, light fantasy ...

0 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by J. A.‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Who should I use for my POV character?

I'm in the early stages of a story with a large number of characters, a complex backstory and a long history. This is mostly because I crafted the world myself for months before deciding to write i...

0 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by J. A.‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Technical Documentation Voice Preference : "Active Voice" - "Passive Voice" - A Mixture of both

We are working on a technical documentation project which includes the rewriting, modernization, restructuring, enrichment of the content. I'm doing the content rewriting and translation parts of t...

0 answers  ·  posted 9y ago by Montag451‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭