Activity for TheTermiteSociety
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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| Edit | Post #22550 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #22390 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #21834 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #21496 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #21287 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #20513 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #20366 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #20206 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #19220 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #19122 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #2020 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
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A: What makes writing emotional? I think there are too many aspects to good emotive writing to list (after all, the way to communicate ideas in a language is covered pretty nicely by its lexicon and grammar; emotion by everything else on top of that), but here are the ones that I think are most important: 1 - A single underlying em... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How could a paragon character be an antagonist? I think there are two aspects to a character's moral framework. There are the character's goals (what they want achieve) and the character's scruples (what they will refrain from doing in pursuit of these goals). Now, I think that - pretty much by definition - a paragon character's goals will be per... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: How do you write an evil character without making him "sexy" or "cool"? In contrast to some (or possibly all) of the other answers, I don't think it's to do with what particular traits the villian has so much as whether they embody a consistent set of ideals (however appalling those ideals may be). We may not exactly forgive a villian for their disregard for the other c... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: How does the narrator address a character who has changed her name, but only some people call her this new name? You have a few options, all of which are (in my view) perfectly reasonable: - If you're using an intimate narrative style (with access to only one character's thoughts at a time): - If you're using a less intimate style (with the freedom to communicate things that the characters don't know; think L... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: How do I break away from imitating published works? Maybe you're focusing too much on what you like, rather than what you like about it. Once you know what you like about something, it's usually not too difficult to come up with something that has those qualities, but in a different way. The deeper you go in your understanding of what you like, the fu... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Is it more effective to lead with a physical conflict rather than an emotional one? I think the really important conflict is between the world inside a character's head and the world outside of it. Since "the world outside of it" is usually shaped by other characters acting in accordance with their own model of the world, this almost always has a moral dimension (because that model ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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How to handle translation of a language in a comic, while preserving a sense that the language is significant? I am producing a comic in which a fictional language is frequently spoken. This language (and which characters are able to speak it) is significant to the plot, so it's important that the reader knows when it (rather than English) is being spoken. It's likely, though, that there will be scenes spok... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: What are these script formats called? Well, the first one is certainly a "screenplay", and is the accepted standard for film and television (though sometimes television scripts are differentiated with "teleplay"). The second one looks like a script for a play. I believe "stage play" is a fairly established term for contrasting the two, ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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How can I keep my dialogue nuanced and informal without breaking the illusion that the story is a translation (from a fictional language)? The story I'm writing is in English, but it's set in a constructed world with a range of different languages. The general conceit is that anything the viewpoint character (of which there's more than one, with more than one language) understands is portrayed in English. The trouble with this is that ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Script-style conversations in a book I think the crux of it is that anything you do that breaks convention will make your writing more difficult to read. That isn't to say you shouldn't do it, by the way (several of my favourite books take serious liberties with style and formatting), but it must be worth the effort. If a reader would b... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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Writing in English, from the viewpoint of a non-English-speaking character, how can I convey a language very similar to the character's own? To provide a little background, I'm writing a novel set in a fantasy world, within which there are multiple languages. I'm applying the rule that any speech the viewpoint character (I'm using subjective third person, by the way) is able to immediately understand is rendered as English, and everythin... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |