Activity for J.G.‭

Type	On...	Excerpt	Status	Date
Answer	—	A: How do we create our own symbolisms? I can see why it feels hard. Almost all these symbolism tropes refer to a specific existing symbolism, rather than ways to create something new. So what are your options? Apples have other symbolic meanings if you look to the right traditions, and if you know what you're doing you can create somethi... (more)	—	over 4 years ago
Answer	—	A: Too eloquent characters Great writers do more than just say, "in real life people don't do X, so my characters mustn't do X". They understand why people don't do X, thereby informing their understanding of their own characters' likely in-universe behaviours. (Of course, sometimes writers do something unrealistic anyway, but... (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Page count conversion from single to double-space for submissions To me, the answer has always been pretty clear: fifty pages that happen to be double-spaced, i.e. an amount that would be about 25 otherwise. What would be really confusing is if they expected people to know they really wanted 100. And such page-based requests are similar in practice with the word or... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can I effectively research for a high-fantasy setting? Warning: this answer links repeatedly to TV Tropes. Don't let this happen to you. Since all three methods you mentioned have drawbacks, I'll try to suggest tweaks to them. Let's start with reading the genre, then borrowing what you like. This amasses facts of the form "when it comes to X, story Y d... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can I make names more distinctive without making them longer? Your rules might be too limiting, given how few vowels English has, even after you remember y is a semivowel. Obviously "use consonants instead" would require a huge rewrite, even if you can tweak the "reasons" for the rule to make it work. But I can think of three less radical ways to expand the opt... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How is simplicity better than precision and clarity in prose? There's a lot to unpack here, at least if someone like me tries to post an answer, because I only half-agree with aims such as those of the Hemingway app. Also, some of what you say brings in additional issues. > the app pushes simplicity and the lowest possible reading level. Where I live, an illit... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: I'm trying to figure out whether to discovery write or outline. How do I choose which is right for me? In my experience, it depends on what the story needs. I've written stories that had to be plotted beforehand because of what the point of the story was. I've written stories that had to be half-plotted because the in-universe timescale they gradually explore couldn't help but write itself at the leve... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can I write an annoying character without annoying the reader? You'll see a good example to learn from when protagonist Ralph meets Vanellope in Wreck-It Ralph. She annoys him partly because of a short-lived immature aping of his words, but mainly because she obstructs his ability to recover a medal he rightly earned, and which he thinks he needs to get his col... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Why don't writers add commas to lengthy sentences, to make them far more readable? The difficulty with such a question is in the apparent need to choose which writer to side with. Are the sentences of Conrad 1910 too taxing? Do those in Landon 2013 go too far the other way? I hope to show this is the wrong question. Punctuation other than .!? etc. has the same clause-separating ro... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do I make my book longer? Most first drafts are too long, and improvement usually involves removing a lot; and yet many beginning writers think they should make their story even longer. But suppose you've not made a mistake. If a story has the potential to benefit from a longer draft, I think it needs to be done from scratch,... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Many resources in one sentence: how to use references? I agree with Cyn's answer. All I'd add is if you're worried about such sentences' clunkiness you can do three things: 1. Say what the list is about before presenting the list; 2. If this is likely to be an issue in multiple sentences, or a serious issue in at least one, consider a reference-as-numbe... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Not projecting myself onto my characters > the majority of my characters are mentally ill Is that true, or is it really only true of your main characters, or even of your protagonists? There's nothing wrong with a certain trait or character type being present in many or even all your stories; but if you're worried your stories are too simi... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Should I be myself and write what I really want even though it isn't getting much traction? Edit: since I posted this answer, the OP has expanded their question to state the interest is in whether one should dumb down in the choice of genre. That is not what I expected herein. I hope what appears below will be of use to future readers interested in the more general question implied in the t... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: What’s a good name for someone who lives up to their name? Like, century lives up to 100 years A term that describes itself, such as polysyllabic, is autological (see here for an amusing consequence of this concept). (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to write female characters as a male writer? Your worry is that Celeste expresses more feelings about their relationship's implications than Marko does, which could play into a "women have more feelings" stereotype. I assume Celeste is the protagonist, which to an extent gives us greater licence to get in her head than his, but your concern is ... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Avoiding spectacle creep I'm sure many people here are familiar enough with episodes of Doctor Who from 2005 onwards to know they faced this problem. Here's my advice: do what the series did from 1963 to 1989 instead. In other words, don't try giving each arc higher stakes than the last one at all; just write each arc in its... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can show that my cold hearted character is coping with grief? I wrote a story in a boarding school, its protagonist a student facing obstacles from a new teacher, the headmistress and her daughters. Later in the story, the new teacher discovered he would lose the use of his legs (which is a downer, if somewhat different from grief), and the headmistress died (w... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Question	—	Does a page-turner have to be continually high-octane? I've experimented with both critique partners and people I know (be they friends, family or colleagues) as unrewarded beta readers. The latter are very slow, sometimes reading slower than I wrote a first draft. Clearly, their reading periods are short and/or far apart. There are any number of persona... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is it bad if I sidetrack to a backstory that’s not really necessary but is interesting? The recommendation to remove something that's good in its own right, but doesn't belong in the broader context of a work, is usually phrased as "kill your darlings". While this is now a literary journal's name, it started when Arthur Quiller-Couch used a slightly different phrase in a 1916 lecture: ... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Writing a Satisfying Ending I can't tell you how to think of a good ending, but we can summarize what it should achieve (though you might not need all of these): - Have a character's personality or development somehow earn or rationalise the ending. - Challenge or even refute an assumption that's existed throughout the story, ... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Question	—	Are "non-readers" useful beta readers? In my opinion, the best beta readers are fellow writers, partly because they may have insight others don't, but partly also because you can agree to trade beta-reading responsibilities. (This is far from a rare opinion; in fact, this special case has its own name, critique partners.) Failing that, bo... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Where do I start? Short answer: all three options work, so experiment. James Scott Bell wrote a whole book on how to write from the middle. I haven't read it yet, so I don't know how good the reasons are for doing so, but presumably it's feasible if you know what you're doing. (Of course, you might only do so if you ... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What new plots are available to writers? The only reason we say there are a small number of plots one can list is because they're defined in an extremely vague way. There's still plenty of room for originality; I'll let you decide whether it constitutes "hope". Here's the best analogy I've heard: > The basic plot is like a mannequin. You'r... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Can I use LaTeX in a fictional code-weaving? Another option is LyX, which I use to write novels. I feel it has advantages even if one doesn't want to include LaTeX formulae. For example, chapters are numbered automatically, and you can hide content in LyX notes and LaTeX comments, so your novel document can also contain private notes to yoursel... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: I am overplotting my story - how can I figure out what is necessary and cut out what isn't? Painful as it is, circumstances like this can warrant writing an entirely new draft from scratch. Your memories of the characters and plot points from the current draft would inform you in such an effort, but you're liable to produce a "greatest hits" rewrite in which those minor characters you like ... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to manage getting depressed by what my main character goes through? Here's a slightly different approach. Write the story in such a way the MC's death has something to compensate it, such as your character becoming irredeemable by dint of their actions of personality, or them dying to save someone else, or his death leading to a noble cause or vengeance against the k... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: First Person vs. Third Person: Advantages and Disadvantages? You might not really know what happens when you try each approach until you use both, say to tell the same short story twice. I'm currently working on the fourth book in a series, and the first one to use first-person narration because I really wanted to get inside one particular person's head for i... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: "Real people don't make good fictional characters". Really true? Sure! You'd be surprised how many great fictional characters were based on people the author met, people interesting enough we idiomatically call them "characters".(Well, maybe you wouldn't be surprised if you appreciate how writing benefits from reflecting human nature.) For example, Basil Fawlty wa... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do you avoid smiling, head-bobbing characters? I had a similar concern once when, having happened upon this image, I thought to check how often characters sighed in one of my manuscripts. It happened about 1.5 times per chapter, which I felt was excessive. My trick to fixing this was simple: visualise the scene as if it were part of TV show, imag... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is it necessary to use chapters for fiction? Technically, no. Most novels use them, but I've read some Discworld novels that just have a black line occasionally to break things up. You may also wish to consider writing an epistolary novel, which is a series of fictional documents such as letters (e.g. The Color Purple) or diary entries (e.g. Fl... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Traits of Bad Writers - Analysing Popular Authors Since you mention Rowling, let's talk about criticism of Harry Potter. - Harold Bloom complained about "clichés and dead metaphors". A S Byatt spoke of "intelligently patchworked derivative motifs", and described the books as "written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, a... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can I plan the chapters in my book? One can plan plot in details, or one can design characters' traits and see what story can't help but develop from that. You might find either approach or something in between serves you, but it sounds as if you've settled on something nearer the first end of the spectrum. One approach is to first wri... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Are there any postulates of literature? Based on my experience in other fields that do have postulates, I'd say the sign of them is that they're positions which enjoy a consensus, seem too fundamental to be provable as such, and are a basis for other inferences. Based on what reader and writer alike consider, I'd suggest postulates of lite... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Should I write a novel if I haven't read many? Many will say what you're striving to do is impossible because you won't have seen enough tricks of the trade in use, but I'll do my best to suggest a way forward that doesn't boil down to, "read N books because that sounds like enough". I'll still end up telling you to do some reading (by which I me... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Writer's Block? Or something else? The cause of your problem is difficult to diagnose on the information given, so I'll explore a few possibilities. You'll need to experiment to see what helps you. Do you have access to what you wrote when you were rarely disappointed with your work? If you re-read it now, you might find you've devel... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do I mislead readers about a character in a story? This is a classic example of why writers need to be well-read: they can learn from how someone else solved a similar problem before. You're probably well-aware (if familiar with the plot of Treasure Island) that Robert Louis Stevenson did with Long John Silver what you want to do with the traitor in ... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What is the purpose of showing Showing instead of telling has several advantages, though which apply depend on the context. I'll list several off the top of my head, based on my experiences of what showing achieves: - You can be less repetitive, e.g. if the reader infers who spoke instead of you having to say "said X" on every li... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do I finish my projects? One thing I'm surprised no-one seems to have mentioned is the architect-gardener distinction. I get the impression your current writing style is that of the gardener, meaning you see what happens and react to it as you go. This is sometimes called writing by the seat of your pants (and such writers ... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Question	—	Are -lich adjectives and adverbs critiqued in German fiction? The anti-adverb advice for English should be (and often is) stated as specific to -ly manner adverbs; Ben Blatt has found the more highly-regarded writers use just as many adverbs, but use fewer -ly adverbs. This got me thinking about whether such advice exists in other languages. For example, -ment ... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Will increasing the word count of my novella to make it a novel improve my options for publishing? Instead of focusing on whether you should lengthen the story, try to work out whether that will happen naturally as a result of whatever improvements your redraft mandates. For example: - Are there characters or plot points that, if you're being honest, aren't nearly developed enough in the first dr... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is there a method to estimating the length of a work before writing it? The main problem with trying to estimate something like this is that, even if two writers used the same very detailed plot summary to write a novel, they might produce works that aren't close to being the same length, because of the way they write. Some authors are much more "concise" than others; f... (more)	—	almost 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Writing about a subject on which you have no expertise? I'm a mathematician and physicist who's routinely annoyed when fiction gets mathematical and/or physical details wrong, even in works that are meant to be about geniuses in the field, such as Good Will Hunting or A Beautiful Mind. You can easily Google examples of people pointing out where either the... (more)	—	almost 7 years ago
Question	—	What things should one highlight as good in beta reading feedback? When I read people's manuscripts to provide feedback, I can easily identify areas worth improving. However, feedback isn't all that helpful if it makes the writer give up, so good news needs to be presented too. I try my best to include that too, but my ratio needs work. It's easy to look up what ar... (more)	—	almost 7 years ago
Question	—	Does it matter which literary agents one contacts first? Novelists seeking a literary agent's representation are advised to prepare a long list of carefully chosen agents (e.g. genre matches are important), but to only contact a few at a time. The response or lack thereof of the first few could suggest, for example, that the query letter or first chapter s... (more)	—	over 7 years ago