Activity for Mephistopheles
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Question | — |
Dumping an entire world for dramatic effect? About 1/3 of the way through my story the main antagonist "wins" and is able to completely remake the world of the story into his notion of an ideal world. The "new" world shares some elements with the previous incarnation but all are altered to some extent. Even character's recollections of previou... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to subvert expectations and abort plotlines without alienating the reader? Subverting expectations and suddenly aborting plotlines was a no-go zone for me for a while. The only time I could successfully abort a plotline was in a thought train. > After watching How To Train Your Dragon 3, I wondered what would have happened if the antagonist Grimmel was replaced midway. I c... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
How can you redeem an awful character, who hits close to home? There is a problem with a redemption arc: Anon is an incredibly powerful god with powers of mysterious origin. In the story, he starts out as bad but is supposed to be redeemed later. There is a problem, however. Anon's actions are understandable and nowhere near as severe as a typical villain's, h... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
What makes a strong mental image? Images, as I call them, are an important part of your prose. Now, let's look at examples of bad images: From Onision's (from now on, Onii-san) book, Reaper's Creek : > Maybe that current lead him to a gathering of logs, and assuming he had not already drowned, he was sucked under the logs, causing... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
I feel like that misinformation feels too artificial as a plot-driving force in my story, how can it be more natural? Misinformation is an important element of my story as is pretty much kicks the plot in motion: Gyvaris, a young dragon, steals a sheep from a large flock since he's really hungry and just couldn't find a single deer, though he was sure there were more than enough for him in the forest. A shepherd w... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
What makes a character irredeemable? Let's look at two characters who are generally considered to be iredeemable: The Diamond Authority (from Steven Universe): The extremely childish leaders of the race of spacefaring lesbian magical girl viruses, known as gems. They are responsible for the genocide of billions of organic life (for no ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to realistically describe pain? So, I was doing a writing excersie, I came up with, to help me with sentence structuring and developing my style. One thing, I ran into, however, was that I couldn't describe pain very well. > The knight sunk the sword into the dragon’s chest. Gyvaris jolted back, his eyes widened in horror as he pe... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
How do you make characters change believably? Changing is an important aspect of every character and is what makes them believable. Yet, if you remember the ending of Game of Thrones, > people weren't too happy about Dany going from "don't want to be the queen of ashes" to The 1666 Great Fire of London. Don't get me wrong, as an outsider, I w... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
I feel like most of my characters are the same, what can I do? If I think about the characters I came up with in my mind so far, I usually get a pretty big list: (Gyvaris (ENTJ), Martha (ENFJ), Adam (INTJ. It's hard to describe that you're constantly seeing dead people from the future), Anon (ISTP) Anon Requiem (ISTP), Amrar (ISTJ), Cephit (INFJ), Koldryd (ESFJ,... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to ensure that neurotic or annoying characters don't get tiring in the long run A is a special snowflake, though for all the wrong reasons. You see, he was born with a special ability that allowed him to see premonitions of his and his loved ones' future in the form of still images. Of course, future here isn't immutable, and premonitions change as new information comes in. Whi... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to write characters doing illogical things in a believable way? As much as I would like it, both in Worldbuilding and Writing, not every action is logical or "right". There are two types of this: Imperfect information: The character(s) lack vital information, making their choices a gamble. Characters being plain stupid: The classic case when you look back and ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
Where's the balance between realism and story? Mark mentioned in his answer that plotholes aren't usually the end of the world, and that I shouldn't sacrifice too much of the story and the characters for the sake of logic. But there's a breaking point where everyone goes "That makes no sense!" The other is with an idea of mine: Essentially ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
Leaving wiggling room for your characters while avoiding contradictions So, I finally began writing my sixtieth or so first draft. And I noticed a small thing: > As sunset came the sky became a river of orange and gold. Maybe like a lava stream? Gyvaris might have been a red dragon, but as embarrassing it was, he never saw actual lava in his life. The only time he heard... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
Making conflicts based on misunderstanding So, the problem is that I can't make conflicts based on a misunderstanding that wouldn't resolve in five paragraphs. My chars are too smart for that, I'm too smart for that (and also have all the time in the world). It's not like I wouldn't come up with a solution to the consequences, however, the fa... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How not to give up hope on Scrappy We all know the spiel: 1. We have an insufferable jerk who is a jerk/annoyance for 95% of his "screen time". 2. In the remaining 5%, he sacrifices himself to save everyone else. 3. The fans dance around a campfire and sing "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" from The Wizard of O- WAIT, WHA? I mean, sure,... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Making similies and metaphors work as intended Similies are like the Reddit 50/50 challenge: you either get something very good, or your eyes will melt off. I mean, you can ruin the mood with a bad one and make yourself a laughing stock. Metaphors are more, well: > Simile:"Oh come on, his heart is soft like a plush toy, I don't want to make him ... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to defeat a strategic mastermind without throwing the idiotball? My antagonist is a "strategic mastermind", similar to the one discussed in How to prevent seeming like a Marty Stu-ish villain is cheating? Proceeding from this kind of antagonist, my question is how can such a "genius" be defeated? How can I make the antagonist not accounting for something, come off... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Executing a tonal shift A novel's tone/atmosphere is typically established within the first few chapters of the book. So, let's say, we establish the story as a light-hearted, over-the-top fantasy deconstruction, with humor only I will understand. And now, how am I supposed to turn this into a psychological horror, where ... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to make a repeating plot "slice" not annoying In my fantasy novels, I don't want to kill anyone off, I just want to get them injured, like badly. I made up numerous believable excuses for this (low-violence, a genuine will to live on the enemies' part, magnetically levitated trauma plates, long engagement distances and hyper-advanced, widely ava... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Making an existential horror work without really showing it I have an idea for a story: My setting is reminiscent of some computer games, in that Player Characters (PCs) are essentially immortal - they reincarnate indefinitely, and can continue to kill the non-Player Characters (NPCs). However, my story is not just about the PCs - it is from the point of vie... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Can justifying "boobplate" armor in the fantasy genre damage its credibility as a serious setting? Ah, the good old balance between hard sci-fi and creative liberty question. I can't answer all, as each time this problem occurs, the solution differs. I did create the somewhat useful Mephisto's Solving Algorithm for Awesome it reads out like this: 1. Collect everything you know about the problema... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Making a prolonged training montage work Training montages and arcs are typically viewed as backstory, something that ends in the prologue, or shows up in flashbacks. They show us a piece of information about the world or a character. This case is different. I want a full-fledged training that spans multiple chapters, though uses time skip... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to control safety nets in discovery writing Even though discovery writing is about letting the story go without interference, you still don't want the characters to get killed in the first chapter. For this exists safety nets, people, objects, or forces that protect the protagonists. Three MacGuffins a day keeps George R. R. Martin at bay. ... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Basic fails to look out for when writing the drama: What can we learn from soap operas So, we established that we can lose many more valuable things other than our life, and to make stakes out of them effectively, we have to make it nothing personal. One thing we haven't discussed is the modes of failure in the drama part (how the conflict unfolds and gets resolved), failures that by ... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Alternative sources of drama/tension when the setting is low-violence So, I think I might just have turned my fantasy setting into a Saturday morning cartoon. I just, don't want people to die within the world. There are monsters, with unlimited reserves of course: zombies, skeletons, creepers... ...Until we learn that they are all vegetables, and can't climb walls, so... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to make a funny and egotistical character that doesn't annoy the audience Oh, this one's a classic. You have a character with an ego so large, it's on the verge of collapsing into an intellectual black hole. You want to make it into a comic relief but instead, end up with an irritating pain in the a\\\ that ruins the mood. Such character would be Mephistopheles, a shady c... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Multi-threaded combat, how to ensure that it's not confusing? I encountered a certain problem while building my world, one that will affect how the story is written: The protagonists never fight by themselves. There are always at least 15-60 military drones surrounding them. The reasons can be best summed up as: 1. Technological singularity renders humans us... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Sympathetic Racist As a certain character from Zootopia would put it: "Fear always works." I soon explain it, but first, as per the universal guideline we found here: > Because, unlike, Hitler, we can understand why he does what he is doing. If we were put into his shoes, we might be doing the same. Thanks, FFN To... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How can I understand characters whose worldview is alien to my own? I feel I've got a huge obstacle, whenever I'm pretending" to be a character and trying to make out how he/she would react. I feel strongly that the mentality of the creator is reflected in his work. And that's a problem when trying to write characters with different mentalities. You don't want char... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Can I keep my characters in my book or should I just give up with them? [Not a Lawyer, nobody's a lawyer here] Double, triple and quadruple down, make them Creative Commons. I don't think said person have copyrighted them, but if she did, that's already grounds for exterminating the human race. Back to the point, creative commons and public domain are like the Death St... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How can a "rip-off" still be good? This time, I'm not really talking about the legal side (that has already been covered a few times here), but more about what the readers and the critics think. The Inheritance Cycle rips off Star Wars, Lord of the Rings. And although many people love it, some critics have expressed a disdain (in a v... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to do political humor Most political humor I see on the internet is usually directed towards persons, and the jokes are relatively easy. However, it's pretty much useless, and temporary, besides, poking at the personality flaws of a politician instead of the flaws in his strategies is a logical fallacy and signals that y... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to make a deceitful trainwreck of a character likeable So, due to a smaller miracle, a scrapped concept, a badly timed Eragon review from Nostalgia Critic and the SAO abridged came together and created a good "filler" episode concept and a character in my mind for the story, however, there is a small problem: The story takes place in GURPS' Banestorm se... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to write repeated actions So, I was writing a test story to see if my tools can work together in the way intended. Few paragraphs into the first chapter and there is a problem: Character A is a scaredy-cat, and I based the locations off of Slender: The Arrival's prologue chapter. So A decides not to use any light sources and... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Writing from a hive mind POV I think what you're looking for is Emergence. Emergence seems to be a fundamental part of our universe, and it basically means that dumb things can become smarter together. An individual transistor is very limited, it can only block or let an electric signal through, however, you can build logic ga... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
What does "juvenile tone" mean? I often hear the word thrown around, but I don't have any idea of what it is, or how can it be avoided. So, what does "juvenile tone" mean and how can I prevent it? (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to make stock death speech great again? > So, Character d is dying, he got shot in the side with a Pulse Rifle. This is very bad, as Pulse Rifles are in the laser category and their mode of operation is to focus the most energy on the smallest possible spot, causing it to explode. The pulse ends before d's brain could even register what ha... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
In-universe swear, curses, similies and sayings, how to make them less cringeworthy Hold Your Hippogriffs: A (more often than not) cringeworthy version of a saying (though can be invented on the spot), that is prone to cause Fatal Death in most readers. But it sounds fun, who wouldn't want to say "You have as much chance as Flower Hill against the exterminators.", or closer to the ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How do you handle it when a controversial philosophy is an essential part of your story? What do I mean? Well, teleporters: > "Every room resets. Remember I told you that? Every room reverts to its original condition. Logically, the teleporter should do the same. Teleporter. Fancy word. Just like 3D printers, really, except they break down living matter and information, and transmit it.... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Making the death of background characters sad The problem with killing off a background character is that their very modus operandi eliminates the most effective advice, because they don't have a long "screentime", and we don't know too much about them. So, then how could one make the readers care about a background character's death, who they ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
What is the purpose of showing If I have a hard time dissecting showing directly, then I just simply ask about the end result: What showing wishes to create in the readers? (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Giving the narrator a personality that doesn't gets tiring Proposition: Stories are information packets aimed to "entertain" people, and just like every other form of communication, they have: - A basic and lasting knowledge for interpreting the information (you violate this when you compare your characters to celebrities who will likely "expire" after a f... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
When writing down a huge amounts of detail is inevitable In hard-SF the writer has to adapt to the world and its limitation. Under normal circumstances, this shouldn't a problem, as you can always make something great, even with the limitations. However, sometimes detailing and establishing a plot/normal device tends to yield huge infodumps: Note: my com... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to do reference jokes right? There is a problem with reference jokes in general, and I just couldn't figure out a solution to them. Here's a demonstration: > "Watch your step, there could be even more of these." > > "More?" ████ was still puzzled. "We haven't encountered any actual defense ever since we entered. No patrols, no... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Stripping the Main Character's Plot Armour? There is a way to achieve uncertainty: Everyone is a rabbit The prime example is Watership Down, a movie about rabbits that kills characters left and right like there's no tomorrow, but so does nature. Everybody knows that rabbits are nature's fluffy popcorn, right? Other examples include: All-gua... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
The basics of making a "reason you suck speech" that doesn't feel contrived "The reason you suck speech" is a trope, that is described as: A character gives a speech on why someone or something is shit. And here's an example: > Well done. Here come the test results: You are a horrible person. That's what it says: "A horrible person." We weren't even testing for that. [...]... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
Doing walls of text dialogue right Shakespeare did it, he did it quite a lot of times, but there are a few problems with it: 1. He was a screenwriter in an age, where we couldn't afford building enough sets (or cities that don't catch on fire), so dumping info in dialogue was easier not financially impossible. 2. He's sorta "outdated... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to make my story structure less repetitive? 1. Set up your POV: 2. How our brains work: If the world is damn complex, then you can still use child characters , "I got teleported here from our world" characters , and "I have amnesia" characters (that one has the benefits of losing normal memory, but not stuff like muscle-memory), and the Ency... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: I want to start writing again: original project or new one? I think, it fairly depends on how much you "remember" your original story. For instance, when I do battles in X-Com: Long War with long breaks, it usually results in a gigantic mess-up with destroyed SHIVs and corpses of my best soldiers littered everywhere. But that's just an anecdotal evidence, as... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
| Question | — |
how to write a rant? Rants and ranters are numerous and pretty damn popular, so I'd just like to ask about a formula or general tips for writing them, without making my readers rage. (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |