Rasdashan‭

While not mutually exclusive, the goals of my co protagonists do conflict and I need to keep them balanced. MC1 works for the CIA and is being burned. He needs help from someone so he can find out...

4 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Mark Baker‭

You wish to maintain the brevity of the names, so I would suggest inserting silent consonants at the end of some, changing Ara to Aragh or Arah to differentiate it visually from the other names. ...

posted 5y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

By not making her a victim. One friend I had lived most of her life in a wheelchair, had no motor control and would punch and kick her caregiver until her hands and feet were bound to the chair. P...

posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Antagonists are not necessarily bad guys. They prevent your protagonist from achieving her goals. Free yourself of the labels and write your characters true to themselves. What you seem to have i...

posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

See your villain as a fully fleshed person who, while harsh and cruel for reasons of his own and having a dark past, is human. Dark doesn’t mean solitary. I was talking to a cousin of mine about ...

posted 5y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Passive arrogance, as others have mentioned, is about believing they know more than others and more than they really know. They are right and being wrong would be a sign of the coming apocalypse. T...

posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Don’t worry about it. Race is a very minor consideration when it comes to characters. Focus on character traits, not skin colour. If you offend someone because you do not clearly state that charac...

posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Word count is a useful tool, but to feel compelled to cram an ending in when you are still in full stride with much of the story as yet unrealized is folly. Your story will take as long as it tak...

posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

A few lines is not a problem. What you will want to do is cite the lines. As long as they are properly attributed and not used in a way that could be damaging to the work you should be fine. IANAL

posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

When I am writing an action scene - my Secondary Protag getting shot, for example, I use shorter sentences. It echoes the thought pattern of the characters, implies that everything is happening ver...

posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

One thing you must decide is why is this torture taking place? Is the tormentor some unbalanced person who loves inflicting pain? Is he a seasoned professional who must extract the truth from the v...

posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

I think it depends on the character of your high born individual and the lower born (though not necessarily common) friend. If the higher ranking character is so used to hearing his title - essen...

posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

I meet my characters. My MCs, I spend about a week or two imagining them in various situations. When they are fleshed out, I start writing them and see what happens and who they run into. The key ...

posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

I have a large assortment of walk on characters who appear briefly. Some of them might return, but most will at best be referred to by another character and just disappear. I find this realistic a...

posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Unless you were given written permission to finish the MSS, leave it as it is. It was probably given to you to read, not rewrite. If you feel compelled to write it, use it to inspire your own wor...

posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭