Posts by Rasdashan
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. ...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
We all have our own reasons, unique to each. The magic of the written word is that it remains. The desire to write something worthy of lasting, whether it is read or not seems to be mine. I need to...
Bear in mind that languages do not have all names sounding the same. If you take my paternal grandfather's name Hyhory and his sons, Isydore, Anton and Kassian you will note considerable variation ...
My MC is in a dark line of work. He is an assassin. He is also someone with lines he does not cross. He has been duped or coerced to do things he would not, but still holds to some standards. I wa...
From what I have read elsewhere, unless they specifically mention that they accept multiple submissions, it is very bad form indeed. The publisher has a process that takes time. If he is impressed...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
Having a villain lop off an arm or leg ought not offend someone who either was born without them or lost them due to accident or combat. Losing limbs is not desirable. I have some disabled friends...
It would depend on the scenario. I suggest you just write, let the changes to history that you make lead you and the reader to interesting places. The movie Fatherland has an interesting scenario ...
I have had many friends from the Middle East and their skin tones ranged from essentially white to soft brown. I found a more telling feature that seemed to set them apart were some slight similari...
It can depend on your character and his experiences. I have been in life threatening situations - never a crashing plane - but multiple car accidents and I believe that my experience in learning to...
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...
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
Vampires and werewolves are such a staple of folklore that introducing the reader to the fact of their existence can be done in many ways. In Interview with the Vampire a nervous journalist saw s...
Dark humour is more about the situation. The theme can be anything - including death and dismemberment. A soldier in battle could notice a fallen comrade and remark about a poker debt he will never...
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...
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...
