Posts by wetcircuit
My question has been provoked by the fact that I have a very spicy joke for a specific situation in a sci-fi story and I'm not sure how readers would react to that. I'll stick to this spec...
the MacGuffin joke I've never understood Hitchcock's "joke" about the MacGuffin on a train. It's clear that it's some kind of nonsense diversion but the punchline just doesn't make sense: “It’...
Deviant in reproduction One of the better uses of a deviant monster is in Alien. A male crew member is "impregnated" orally. The resulting baby is described as something that "shouldn't exist", gr...
The Rain Queen is a real-world example that meets some of your requirements. There are also many explanations for the "contradiction" evolving over time. Many vestigial monarchies exist today whi...
introduce a... very well-endowed character. How do I write this so that I get the point across that she's that way, but not making it sound overly lewd or off-putting? I thought it was cute re...
I'm posting a second answer because this suggestion is a little out there, but it might be a way to have your cake and eat it too. If you are publishing a cybertext, make the bilingual stuff inter...
I think you have a good premise. It is worth asking some rhetorical questions about why you would (and would not) want to shift POV with an ensemble cast. "good" reasons: Keeps the pace and te...
Isn't this essentially the same question you already asked? At any rate, my answer is the same: Referencing modern pop culture in science fiction Pop culture references in real life affirm trib...
I think the term you're looking for is NARRATIVE VOICE, sometimes called Narrative POV but that oversimplifies it. The narrative voice sets the tone and pace for the story, but also signals how we...
After feedback on character design for my visual novel, my grizzled Noir Detective is drifting into an Old Jazz Musician. There's a reason I post the artwork: what has gone unmentioned in this fe...
In my personal experience, there is a night-and-day difference in a friend who sleeps around, and a friend who sleeps with your boyfriend. Since everyone is college-age they will have ingrained op...
The passage puts cart before horse. She fantasizes about having babies, and then gets around to trying to justify the man who is going to give her the babies, yet she doesn't sound like there is an...
Create a Fantasy Map. It doesn't need to be terribly detailed, and it is a beloved convention of fantasy genre. Writing Excuses has a podcast on the topic: https://writingexcuses.com/2016/11/0...
When one is a plotter of stories, every step of the intrigue is laid out before one starts writing. Well…, no. I sometimes think discovery writers imagine that plotters are passionless stone ...
I'll give another option: 8) Split a major (sub)plot in half, and move the 2nd half into to a later book. It will definitely take some re-writing, but your 1st book seems overloaded. The temptat...
I've done worldbuilding and extensive plotting for a Book 1 based around a "detective" (not a literal detective but someone who fills that role) who hunts and resolves (neutralizes) occult object...
I have a character who starts as a low servant caste and rises up through society. While plotting, I never bothered to give her more than one name, I guess I was thinking her island/village is smal...
My story is set in a sci-fi universe but it is less about genre tropes and more about the kinds of grown-up complicated characters I'd want to find in any story. I'm not bragging or trying to be hi...
I'm building a dedicated WordPress website for my (in-progress) graphic novel. My first thought was that I'd have an artist's blog for work-in-progress, and explore some of the worldbuild-y aspect...
I've written myself into a sci-fi cliche which I have never seen done well: two characters meet in virtual reality. The gist of my scene is one character has been in a pseudocoma, more aware of he...
What are the recognizable tropes to a "train heist", or more broadly the action sequences where a protagonist boards a moving train in order to stop it? My protagonist is the unreliable guile her...
I have three protagonists working towards the same goal but with different motives. They are co-protagonists each with their own character arc and resolution. Circumstances bring them together but ...
Arguments, discussions, disagreements In my script I have a lot of "arguments" – loose definition: long discussions where characters disagree about what to do. These arguments don't escalate to ...
A character's name starts with a hard G, as in Gary. Another character (dismissively) calls him by his first initial "G", said with a soft G, as in gee whiz. I've been using the letter G, but it'...
I've been writing a friendly tutorial series for a small art software community. Somehow I decided to write it in first person plural, so the entire tutorial is "First, let's do this..." and "Now w...
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