Activity for SF.
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Question | — |
How to tag distinct options/entities without giving any an implicit priority or suggested order? An example of the problem in an aggravated form surrounds the controversy of France changing ‘mother’ and ‘father’ to ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2’ in official paperwork - where the controversy suggests the new standard implies one parent is 'secondary' and the designation may induce completely unnecessa... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: What constitutes misleading the reader "Don't confuse the reader" is one of the rules that exist to be broken. As usually, "when to break the rule? When you know what you're doing." In this case, straighten it out immediately after he wakes up. > No branch, no tree, no sky. Just murk of the cavern, drip of water. > > He shook his head ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Offensive aesthetics and naming conventions? You can be sure you'll offend someone. This is unavoidable in this day and age. Peppa the Pig offends Muslims, Bob the Builder presents patriarchal stereotypes, Teletubbies are satanistic, and NASA is the HQ of Them. I can guarantee anything that isn't dead serious about nazi themes will be met with ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Does a novel require a conflict? Stories need conflict - that's a rule. Rules are there to be broken - that's another. And there's the unbreakable one, about when the rules can be broken: when you know what you're doing. Story when the author failed to create a conflict - through negligence, lack of skill, or burn-out, or whatev... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Is it a bad habit to reveal most of the information still at the beginning of the story? The main problem with "revealing too much" is info-dumps. Boring the reader early on. If you can reveal a lot without boring the reader, that's great! The opposite of what you do - dribbling bits of exposition and making the reader tear down the image they built and rebuild it with the new info repe... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How feasible is it to write a story without any worldbuilding? One easy, cheap and workable approach to writing without worldbuilding is when the world is known. Your story takes place at the White House, your protagonist is President Trump. Everyone knows all the rest. Just sketch out the events. Another, harder - is to write apart from the setting. The event... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can I keep my dialogue nuanced and informal without breaking the illusion that the story is a translation (from a fictional language)? Translator's footnote. > [Translator's note]: Dargo was using a heavy Tuvelarian accent, characteristic to the small, isolated rural settlements of Tuvelar. To reflect this, I'm using the Texan country accent in my translation, considering many cultural parallels between the two regions. (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Would employing the use of philosophical ideas in fiction without citing the sources be considered plagiarism? Ideas are not copyrightable. Having a character follow a philosophy is definitely not a form of plagiarism. Presenting that philosophy as a paraphrase of the original work might be plagiarism, though dubiously illegal (copyright on most of these works has long expired already anyway.) In most cases, ... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: How much detail should I go into for a character taking advantage of physics expertise? If you're writing for broad audience, you will be accepted if you're skimming the details and not going in-depth. If you focus on a specific audience, you might ride the wave of the success of The Martian if you go really in-depth. Instead of "power of light", gain mastery of electromagnetic waves. ... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: How do I work through writer's block? Take your criticism down A LOT of notches. Instead of struggling on that One Great Idea you can't get, and dismissing everything you come by as crap, pick a painfully generic plot, add one simple, standard trick, and just start writing. Pick any of fairy tales, even the most generic one, knight sav... (more) |
— | almost 9 years ago |
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A: How do you effectively denote a non-"heading-ed" transition into a concluding section? If you are writing different subjects with headings, stay consequent and give the conclusion a heading, period. If you are writing lengthy segments about different topics without headings, or if you absolutely must create your conclusion without a header while giving it to other subject (for some od... (more) |
— | over 9 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Am I making the writing too complex? There are two basic applications of this technique: serious and comedic. In the serious version, your character changes opinion about given passage while writing it. It tells about character development, how their view of things changes through introspection and reminiscence. > My best friends gave... (more) |
— | over 9 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Ending a PhD thesis by saying "there is more to do" A paragraph or chapter that outlines "possible future research directions" is a common part of many theses, placed near the conclusion. Do not treat it as "this is missing." Your thesis is complete over the section it analyses. Your analysis is not "lacking". Instead, it opens the doors to more rese... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to deal with cliche dialogue? Oh, you are doing well here. Very well. You are breaking a rule about cliche dialogues exactly where it should be broken. You are writing a meaningless, dull prattle that lulls the reader into slightly bored indifference and then you drop the bomb of “Animal Self-Destruction Observation Group” which... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Beginners can break rules too? When to break the rules? When you know what you're doing. Breaking the rules "the good way" always serves some purpose. It's never done "just because". Writing is all about eliciting certain moods and feelings in the reader, and the rules prevent jarring, unpleasant surprises, breaking of immersion,... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Handling an Inauthentic Character I don't think any character is ever too complicated. Some may be alienating to more "mainstream" readers, but that only means you shift your target audience to more ambitious readers. Then, of course, everything happens for some reason. The character being that way is a result of a certain backstory... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
| Question | — |
Can a plagiarist sue one who plagiarized them? I sometimes write rather vicious satirical pieces that heavily reference (arguably - but possibly beyond the point of plagiarism; definitely the same setting, the same characters, strong references to events) the works upon which the satire is written. Expectably, authors, or their fans, aren't enti... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: How can I write better code-based reference documentation for programming interfaces? As a user, you use API for certain purposes. You have certain goals you want to achieve, and the API is a tool that should help you achieve them. Your problem is, how to achieve these goals. Think of API "hardwareToolbox", which is a common toolbox in your garage. There's a hammer, there's a set of... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Genre conventions: Which end do readers expect? Which end do readers expect? Either of the ones you given. Some will expect one, others the other That's why you should choose neither. You have two obvious options, plus a dull 'no choice made'. That's one point where the difference between a common book and an excellent one is made. This is wher... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: How to distill a plot into a logline? Seems like step 2 of the 3-step method of coming up with the title. First step: you compress the story into a half-page summary, that catches the essentials, piques interests, and so on. You condense events from the chapters into single sentences, cull unnecessary fluff, replace revelations with mys... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: What can I do to make my writing less choppy? There is nothing wrong with writing like that in first draft. Get events in order, write down attributes, reasons, settings, in a way that is comfortable for you. Have all the essentials in an easily accessible order. Then perform major editing. First, show, don't tell. Look at every single attribu... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: How can we make compiling release notes less chaotic? First off, technical non-writers make better technical writers, than non-technical writers do. They usually can write in a way mostly understandable to layman and factually correct (as opposed to non-technical writers who'll often write something perfectly clear, but completely wrong), they just need... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
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A: Are there straightforward instructions for MS WORD 2013 for numbering in different formats, yet maintaining a chronological count? Did anyone else write a thesis following these guidelines? Find a former, already accepted thesis document by someone else, eviscerate it of all content leaving only stubs to retain formatting and fill it with your own content, using their styles, numerators, sections etc. I don't think formatting ... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
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A: Humor in a fantasy setting One easy way to go about portioning humor is picking a comical character (or two) and peppering the story with their wit, ineptitude, craziness, grave pessimism, or whichever other approach that makes them humorous that you like. In D&D settings that character would traditionally be some kind of bar... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Good idea to describe the heist place before the heist begins? If you want that in deep detail, provide a tour. If you want to cut on detail a little, make a scene of pre-heist briefing (or security briefing if that's the narrator's side). The leader describes key elements, may show footage - photos or video of more important elements, may show images - that wa... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Can I plug a loophole in my magic rules without rewriting the whole novel? The same solution as every decent DM has to Pun Pun. You Are Not The First Who Thought Of It. And the one who did think of it first really doesn't like competition. They are a background god, one who avoids spotlight and acts following own motives, rarely heard of. You rarely hear of them in partic... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
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A: When do I explain my created world scenario in a prologue vs. letting it unfold in the story? If you can do it in the story, and the story will not lose on it, do it. If this would hurt the story, do it in prologue. There are a few reasonable tipping points: - BORING. If the elements of the world would not add to the story. It would be lengthy and tedious. Do a quick info dump and be done w... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
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A: How can I write a tragedy for children? I don't think you will find any tragedy for children found acceptable in these times. Grimm and Andersen got "grandfathered in" for being classics, even though they were rewritten in more "acceptable" forms for wide public. Currently though, when Uncle Tom's Cabin is found racist for using real langu... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Create and using a custom version of a part of an existing mythology One solid advice how to make it fly and make sure readers who don't know the myth aren't confused, and readers who know the myth aren't annoyed: Hang one good, sturdy lampshade on it. Have it explained, be it through a narrator/sidenote, or by a character within the story: The original myth retold c... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Question | — |
Does my poem convey the character of the (fictional) author well? The core character in my current work-in-progress is an immortal goddess (of the minor kind), who goes increasingly desperate. In her desperation she's about to do something quite terrible, and the protagonist's task is to stop her. He knows her final intent, but not the motives - why she wants to do... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: How can I dig conflict out of an optimistic SF-nal premise? PROGRES. Is there still anything left to achieve? If there is, why isn't this achieved yet? What obstacles are to be overcome? How do you overcome them? Or maybe... the utopia deemed progress is the road to ruining the utopia? In that case you have a wonderful conflict: Someone decides to "improve ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: What do you do if you enjoy writing, but have no ideas? Take some very generic, very simple, completely trivial and trite theme - something entirely unoriginal - and try to write it best to your ability... no, not even best, just adequately, correctly. Start writing it, and if your imagination is taking you places, let it. Last week I started off with a ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How likely is the "five consecutive word rule" to detect "random," as opposed to intentional plagiarism? I'm completely sure picks like "as he walked up to", "he screwed his eyebrows and" or "as far as I know" will happen notoriously but they don't constitute plagiarism because they are very common expressions. Don't count conjunctions, pronouns, particles and prepositions in the "five word" count - yo... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How to write from the middle? There is an alternative: force yourself to write from the beginning. Use the giddiness to reach the scenes you have fleshed out in your mind as a motor to build awesome introductions. It's like eating a dinner: starting with the ice cream and leaving the greens for last. Ick. Eat your greens like mo... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
| Question | — |
Does this riddle abuse language to make it fit into verse? Not being a native speaker I'm unable to tell if my poetry sounds fine or just awkward - I know I'm abusing grammar to fit rhymes and rhythm, but the question is: am I abusing it too much? Does that sound as poetic English to a native ear, or is it mangled beyond repair? > Animal skull took name of ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
| Question | — |
Tracing dependencies and emergent plotholes during edits The fiction I write currently hit a major snag and needs a big overhaul of a major part of the story. A whole, large thread is being injected, a second conflict running in parallel with the main one and nearly as big - maybe smaller scale-wise but possibly even more complex. Thing is I have a big pa... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Should dull dialogue be removed completely? You should watch - or maybe better read up on - Hitchcock's movies. Build up a sense of normal, dull life, then shatter it. The more standard, dull the image, the harder the blow hits, the stronger the effect. Of course don't overdo it, don't just bore the reader, but setting up the pristine stage f... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Gadgets that make the world/story broken I'm afraid "infinite lists of items" are not really welcome here. OTOH, links to resources containing such lists are okay, so... Fridge Logic, Plot Hole Warning, TVTropes links. (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
| Question | — |
Resource for generic plot hooks? I'm in a long and painful recovery from many years of writer's block. Coming up with even quite simple story ideas costs me unreasonable amount of effort. Sometimes inspiration is generous and I'm able to sketch a catchy main plot from time to time. But that is not quite enough - I should give my st... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Peeking through character's mask The way I went about it, is giving the Stranger a Single-serving friend, to whom the Stranger dares to open up just enough to give us a glimpse, and who happens to be not nearly as single-serving as it seemed (leading to the protagonist and the Stranger to meet later.) Quoting Fight Club: > Narrato... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: A cross-[What] kind of romance? > The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed (apart from solar and cosmic radiation), and self-regulating system. I think, if we think in interplanetary terms instead of our little xenophobic terracentric little box, a biosphere can b... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
| Question | — |
Peeking through character's mask Normally, I specialize in strong, determined, uncompromising, extroverted protagonists, "If the laws of physics are against us, too bad, they need to be changed." I'm pretty good in getting them right. But this time I tried at someone opposite: a character who is introverted, shy, uncertain, afraid,... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Using uncommon abbreviations Stanislaw Lem had a very nice method for that. Read his "Observation on the Spot" for it, although I'm not sure if translation captures the spirit. In essence, the acronyms compose into meaningful, half-meaningful, humorous, horribly misspelled, rudely suggestive and otherwise very memorable words. ... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Characters with no names It adds a little difficulty to reading and thus a little chance to screwing up. Although, especially in first-person stories it's a very common and quite nice literary tool to leave the protagonist both nameless and devoid of most physical traits that are not essential to the plot. This makes immers... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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Non-cheap ways to make villains evil? Do you have any tried and true techniques to make villains of your stories truly hated by the audience? I mean, frequently it's "eh, sure, that's bad, he's got to be stopped" but the audience would rather observe the villain more, learn, maybe try to get them to change their ways. Or worst of all, p... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: How does one write a character smarter than oneself? Primarily, cheat by writing the story backwards. Start from the end revelation of the implicit story (the crime) and progress towards beginning, iteratively removing any simplicity. Start with the outcome, the rather simple final set of events that is to be discovered. Then take it apart: tools, wit... (more) |
— | about 12 years ago |
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