Activity for Matthew Dave
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: Are wands in any sort of book going to be too much like Harry Potter? Harry Potter was not the first book series to have wand-wielding magicians, and it won't be the last. The best thing to do is just give your own world's wands an identity. My own world has wands/staffs essentially being the same device, but with different firepower/augmentation of abilities. Mages c... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Am I a new writer? Self-publication, alas, often ends up making a black mark on your track record to traditional publishers, as it says the following: 1. I don't want to go through the quality checks required to get traditionally published, and therefore am likely unwilling to go back and re-edit. 2. Regardless of my ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is it bad to project myself into my story? Self-projection into one's stories is an inevitability. Whose lens affects your outlook on life, and thus the worldbuilding/tone of your novel? That's right, yours. Who is the only person you have direct experience of the thoughts of? Once again, you. As such, you shouldn't be surprised or beat your... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Using real words from a foreign culture feels like 'Calling a rabbit a "smeerp"' When it comes to using fictional terminology for concepts with real-life equivalents, the best usage is for flavour; to establish what kind of culture the setting is. A good way to do it is to make your 'smeerp' word something that is relatively self-explanatory, so you're not doing the xkcd example ... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Using big words without sounding like a thesaurus junkie As long as the words are used correctly and, as you put it, for precision's sake, it should come off as naturally high-brow. One can tell a thesaurus junkie from one simple aspect; the writer doesn't use the correct word, but its second cousin. As long as you're not doing that, be flowery to your he... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Naming my characters I like to be semi-subversive in that most characters have non-meaningful names for the plot and anything out-of-universe, but they should mean something in-universe. Namely, they should fit the cultures and social status of the character. As with the example of Harry Potter, JK Rowling sets up two s... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Creating an incompetent antagonist Well, remember, many totalitarian regimes are in fact woefully inefficient. Largely because the emperor/fuhrer/first citizen needs to make sure the people beneath him are either not ambitious enough or competent enough to potentially overthrow them. The emperor has to be a paranoid backstabber to mai... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: In a first-person web novel, how to make the reader aware of a motivator the POV is unaware of? Ensure there's enough objective external cues to indicate precisely that. For example, did his throat start to sting or his eyes tear up when he saw his enemy in pain? In addition, perhaps have him confuse his feelings for a similar, but considerably less friendly feeling, like pity. You can get cre... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do I draw attention to a girl's chest without making it overly lewd? If you want to be truly neutral about these things, just say 'She had notably large breasts' and leave it at that. However, plenty of other users have brought up an excellent way to do this while also sprinkling in characterisation: Make the reaction dependent on the observer. For example, I'm writi... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How can I indicate that a particular relationship between two male characters is purely brotherly (Philia) rather than romantic (Eros)? Shippers will always mistake close friendships as homosexual, because of all the natural chemistry that comes with written close friendships. Folks will have 'shipping goggles' on no matter what, and open affection between guys (who in fiction and real life alike are expected to be cold, distant and ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Snowflake Method: Step 3 - What is important to a character story line? According to the linked website you provided, the points are pretty self-explanatory. Copy-pasting from the site: - The character’s name - A one-sentence summary of the character’s storyline - The character’s motivation (what does he/she want abstractly?) - The character’s goal (what does he/she wan... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How does an author write in hand gestures and non-verbal communication? Make the gestures culture-neutral, or describe the intent of the hand gesture. For example: > He gestured across his neck with a cutting motion. This generally implies decapitation, meaning anything from 'you're dead' to 'call off the action', but either way, given a context, the communication is c... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do you escalate a story's plot after killing the Big Bad? One way to do it is to write a novel that doesn't have the big bad as a crutch, or the sole instigator of conflict. Perhaps the consequences of the big bad's actions, like a long-standing distrust between previously-heroic characters, fuels a brand new conflict. Maybe the world the story is set in is... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to use professional jargon when writing fiction? The audience will come to understand professional jargon the same way as they would understand, say, a fantasy-only term for a fictional universe; they'd infer from context, and only in the direst of circumstances would need to be sat down and told what's what. For example, I've never needed to be t... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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Misdirection for suspense/plot twists - what's acceptable and what's dishonest? Note: I'm primarily asking this question because while Surtsey, the original asker of the question didn't actually ask a thing (and instead copy-pasted an excerpt of a novel) I believe it's a worthwhile question to ask. With that in mind, let's begin. Sometimes, tension, drama, or a twist can only b... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do I design characters for an open-ended series? The first thing to note, if you want these characters to be capable of being protagonists, is the potential for an arc. This means that the character must want to be somewhere, be it physically, emotionally, or in status, away from where they are now. This makes them start the journey. It doesn't ev... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Does point of view matter drastically? Generally speaking, you want to offer consistency in your style, and erratically switching to a minor characters' POV for one random chapter can appear jarring. An example would be in Enduring Love. This is a story about a scientist who witnesses a disaster, along with a devout Christian man. The Ch... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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Is genre ever relevant to the writing process? I'm a strong believer in genre being largely a thing that's used for marketing, an easy shorthand for book stores to know where to place your book and sell it better. It's also, unfortunately, a shorthand for critics who are predisposed to hating certain stories for surface traits without going to th... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Should I let my hero die with the villain? If it's what you're going for thematically, that their duality leads to mutual destruction, then by all means do it. As long as the story builds to that, there's no reason not to do it. If you're just doing it as a twist out of nowhere (which according to your description, doesn't seem to be the cas... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Are chapters with a single character inherently more difficult for an average reader to connect with? (And do you have any tips.) A chapter generally needs a miniature conflict and arc of its own, and as such must have some kind of tension. As you pointed out, having multiple characters makes it somewhat easy, but a character that's alone seemingly can't bring a conflict or arc about. Here, one has to shift the focus to intern... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How do I add tension to a story, when the reader knows the MC survives? Life and death is actually a pretty low-stakes conflict in my opinion. Yes, of course, it's the ultimate thing we all want to avoid, but when it comes down to it, how many of us have experienced being dead? That's right: No-one. If you have, then get back into the grave, unholy zombie. Amadeus brin... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Characterisation: What lines can an antihero cross while retaining reader sympathy? Now, to clarify ahead of time; I'm quite aware that compelling doesn't necessary equal sympathetic and vice versa. That being said, here is the dilemma. There's a character that I intend to write who is an antihero, both in the classical Greek sense (highly flawed and not always successful in his en... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Third Person POV: What level of telling is acceptable for character motivation? The novel I'm writing is third-person limited POV in style. This means that the narration's coverage is limited to what the POV character can observe, think, feel, while others' thoughts, feelings, and out-of-sight actions are naturally not covered. The dilemma is thus: Show don't tell as an adage i... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Characterisation: How to make it evident that a character's flawed perspective is intentional? I'm writing a novel which has alternating point of views; odd chapters are from an angsty, neglected twelve/thirteen-year-old girl who's struggling with belongingness, puberty, and parental confusion/neglect, and even chapters are from the perspective of an academic who's been thrust into his scholar... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to write an introductory dialogue? At the moment, your suggested dialogue is very dry. Every piece of dialogue should ideally serve one of two purposes: 1: Move the plot forward. 2: Expose something about a character/their relationship with a character. A good example of economic usage of a greeting to establish something about cha... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Publication: What to do about a high wordcount debut novel? I'm a strong believer in books/novels being as long as they need to be; if it turns out short, don't try to pad it out, and if it's long... unless there's chaff to cut out, it's long for a reason. That being said, I'm writing a debut novel which 3/4 of the way in is pushing about 170,000 words. No d... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Do I stand to lose anything if I reprint an already published story on my own site? You can run into problems with publishers if you make the thing they're trying to sell for you for money free online. It's a direct attack on their business model, and if it was done by a pirate, well, that's one thing, but for the author themselves to do it? Well, it's not going to endear you to th... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How can I make an in-universe random event feel like it was really random instead of just RNJesus' will? There's a saying about writing fiction: You have a harder job than God. Because while coincidences and chance play a massive role in real life, in fiction, things generally need... a reason to happen. Things need to follow, things need to be foreshadowed. Even if the incident that kicks off the plo... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Do I have to keep saying “_____ thought,”after I put italics? If you establish it as a convention in your novel, no. Being honest, while there are uses for outright stating thoughts as streams of dialogue-like prose, it's still a very telly form of exposition. Creative narration and use of motifs can bring about the same effect in POV-based narration as outrig... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Character motivations facing death? Well, I'd say that if the character is human, saving humanity is kind of in their best interests. It's not a motivation that's unique to him as a character, but it's certainly believable. If the villain is a threat to humanity, the hero knows he is, and the hero enjoys being alive, human, and amongs... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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