Activity for F1Krazy
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comment | Post #39219 |
Count me in as well. It's good to see you all again. (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: Is it a common practice to provide a chapter/section reference from the next volume in a series to the previous? Footnotes informing a reader of which previous work an event occurred in are ubiquitous in comic books, but I've never heard of them being done in a novel before, nor would I really recommend it. The general consensus on another recent question about using footnotes in a novel was that it was a bad i... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Using footnotes in fiction: children's book which can be enjoyed by adults When I was a kid, I had the Walking With Dinosaurs and Walking With Beasts companion books, and I read them over and over. I didn't know a lot of the more technical terms, but I could either look them up in the dictionary, or just guess what they meant based on context. It didn't affect my enjoyment ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Examples of dialog beats and bookism You're using too many beats, especially in your second example. You don't need to describe every minute change of tone while a character is speaking. It breaks up the flow too much. There's absolutely nothing wrong with: > "Listen to me!", said John. "We can sell all these coins now and get rich tod... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Intentionally misspelling words in dialogue If you want to place particular emphasis on a word in a piece of dialogue, you can use italics: > "Looking and looking... in all the wrong places." There is also a convention - though admittedly, mostly in visual novels and roleplays - to put a tilde at the end of a sentence in place of a full stop... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is a new paragraph line needed in dialogue when a character responds with actions? I see nothing wrong with this, provided the dialogue and the responding action flow together neatly. Your example is a bit stilted, but if you connect them like so: > "Move!" he barked, and I immediately stepped aside. ...that flows a lot better, in my opinion. This also works if Character A says ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How do you write a Stack Exchange answer? "Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer" does not apply on Stack Exchange. On multiple occasions, I've seen people post "answers" that are either sarcasm/jokes, personal attacks, or just plain don't answer the question, and then try and justify it by saying something like, "Well, this is a stup... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Would publishing my story like a TV series be successful? The publishing model you're suggesting isn't actually all that new. Serialised novels) - novels published in newspapers or magazines, one chapter at a time - were very common back in the 19th century, starting with Charles Dickens' publication of The Pickwick Papers in 19 monthly instalments between... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Awkward language translation This reminds me of Life of Pi. The protagonist is a young man from India named Piscine (French for "swimming pool". I forget why he's called this, but I'm sure he does explain it). As a kid, he was bullied at school because his name sounds like "pissing", so he shortened his name to "Pi" and made it... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Bad to start story with VR/non-real scene? There's nothing wrong with starting your story with a fantasy VR sequence. This is known as a Fake-Out Opening (TV Tropes link warning!). What you want to avoid - and what you do seem to be concerned about - is confusing the reader. The last thing you want is them picking up your cyberpunk novel, ge... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Reusing story title as chapter title As the other answers have stated, I don't believe re-using the story's name for the first chapter is a particularly good idea, especially if it means something different later on in your story. However... > Would the answer be any different if it were the last, or any other chapter? Yes. It's not ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is the MC in first person singular always all knowing? TL;DR: First-person protagonists are never all-knowing, but if they're telling the story after the fact, they can know things they haven't been told yet. First-person narratives come in two flavours: past-tense, where the narrator is recalling events that have already happened; and present-tense, wh... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to tell readers that I know my story is factually incorrect? I've read a few books that had an "afterword" section at the end, where the author would address the reader directly to talk about the work. I know Anthony Horowitz did this with the Alex Rider series; one book had him list his top 10 favourite deaths across the whole series, and I think another had ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How can I portray a resentful character without making them overtly angry? Two words: Severus Snape. Snape's backstory is pretty similar to your sergeant's: James Potter, who bullied Snape at school, married Lily, the woman Snape loved. Snape consequently detests James, and this manifests in his hatred of James' son Harry, who looks just like James. But I can only think o... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Will writing actual numbers instead of writing them with letters affect readership? I'd say it depends on what those numbers are. Writing "five in the morning" instead of "5am" isn't going to make too much of a difference to readability. In fact, depending on the general tone of your story, that slight bit of extra eloquence can really enhance it. However, once you get into longer ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to describe POV characters? This depends on whether you're using past-tense or present-tense narration: whether the narrator is looking back at things that have already occurred, or describing events as they occur. If you're using past-tense narration, the narrator can always describe themselves while setting the scene, just a... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is a sequel allowed to start before the end of the first book? A "sequel" that takes place during the events of its predecessor is called a midquel (or more precisely, an "intraquel"). In your case, only the first 25% of your second book is intraquel, but the point is: not only is this allowed, but it's so common there's even a term for it. To give you another ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Write a story based on characters from an old novel As of 2017, the collective works of H.G. Wells, including The Time Machine, are in the public domain. Not only that, Wikipedia also lists over a dozen stories based on The Time Machine, almost all of which were written before that date (I can only assume its US copyright expired much earlier) and onl... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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How to trick the reader into thinking they're following a redshirt instead of the protagonist? I'm currently planning a "magical girl" story, and I thought of an interesting way to start it, rather than launching straight into the backstory. It opens with a woman in her mid-thirties, complete with ponytail of death, walking through a city market while being stalked by a shadowy monster. What ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to turn a single narrative into a branching one? You have your main path already, which is a good start. What I would do from there is identify the main choices that the protagonist makes - the things they say or do that drive the plot in that specific direction - and then turn those into the branching points. For example, if your true ending invol... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to deceive the MC In a third-person limited (or first-person) narrative, deceiving the MC and deceiving the reader are pretty much the same thing, since the reader only knows as much as the protagonist. In this case, there's nothing wrong with a little deception. One of my favourite adventure games, Another Code: Two... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is it acceptable to use props I saw in a movie in my story? I don't see why not. If they were objects unique to a particular movie setting, like the lightsabers in Star Wars, you'd raise a few eyebrows at least, but these are literally just cups. You may as well have seen them in a thrift store. I highly doubt that anyone is going to read your story and recog... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Too soon for a plot twist? There's no such thing as "too early in the story for a plot twist". There's even a trope called "First-Episode Spoiler", for when the very beginning of a story contains a plot twist that's pivotal to the rest of the story (obligatory TV Tropes warning). In your case, where you've got the parallel jo... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Should I signal completion of a decision point in an interactive novel? In works that aren't strictly visual novels, where players/readers might not expect their choices to matter, then visual indicators work well to remind them that yes, the choice they just made will affect something. But in visual novels, the concept of "every choice matters" is pretty much a given, s... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Protagonist constantly has to have long words explained to her. Will this get tedious? A while back, I redrafted my NaNoWriMo 2017 story, but it still needs another draft. This question is about one of the concerns I have. The story takes place in a medieval fantasy setting, and the protagonist is a homeless orphan of about fourteen. As a result, she has a somewhat limited education, ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Enigma Book with a money prize There have been several similar books in the past, known as "armchair treasure hunts". However, these generally involve actual physical treasures that have been buried somewhere, and cracking the riddles in the book leads you to their location. The principle is the same, though: the author of the puz... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: MC doesn't know something that's obvious to the reader > Is it unrealistic for her to be unable to connect the dots and remember her actions? I think you should look at this in a slightly different way. It's not that she's unable to connect the dots; it's that she's unwilling to. I notice you specified in the linked question that: > even when she is al... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Approach to pop culture quotes in fiction writing According to this question, you'd be in trouble if you quoted entire songs, but single lines should be okay. Making the quotes approximate would ensure you don't run into any legal issues, but would also likely prevent your readers from getting the references, which would defeat the entire purpose. S... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: How do I draw attention to a girl's chest without making it overly lewd? > 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? Make it funny. Since your viewpoint character is a woman, the best way to do this without being off-putting is to (depending on her own physique and personality) have her ex... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Is this easter egg too obvious? "Obvious" is subjective. A couple of weeks ago at work, one of my coworkers wrote part of the chorus to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on one of our whiteboards. Another of my coworkers - who's about my age and quite likes his music - had no idea what the song was. The rest of us got it instantly. Having... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do you escalate a story's plot after killing the Big Bad? As you noted in your answer, the common approach to doing this is to just introduce another villain, or another threat, and keep doing that as necessary. The trick is to balance it in such a way that you don't cheapen the previous threats, and at the same time, you leave yourself room for further esc... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Interviewing a person for a character "I'm just curious" is not a very compelling argument, especially when you're emailing a random stranger who's probably too busy to answer every such email that enters his inbox. "I'm writing a book", however... who doesn't want to have their story told in a book, or see something they're passionate a... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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How do I write transitions between thinking and speaking? I've just downloaded an open-source script-writing program, and have started converting the scripts for an anime I've been writing into industry-standard formatting. There are a few points in the scripts where a character says something out loud, then immediately thinks something else (which the aud... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Sensitivity with disorders/mental illnesses My answer for this is my answer to any question about portraying an illness or trauma: talk to people who are suffering from it. People with depression and/or suicidal ideation may not always be willing to discuss it, but if they are, they can help you write your characters in a way that's both real... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Can i have two low points in a story? I'd say yes. That first idea is a "Hope Spot", where the audience is led to believe things might work out after all, only for them not to. It's a fairly common technique (obligatory TV Tropes warning). However, I feel like making the resolution a montage sequence is a bad idea. You're making us watc... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Dropping subtle hints about a character's sexuality First off, I reckon a female artist like Lady Gaga or Madonna would work better as a hint than David Bowie. As others have pointed out, liking feminine men doesn't necessarily mean you like women as well. Gaga and Madonna are also LGBT icons, so that's another subtle layer of foreshadowing (then agai... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to create a page turning effect if there is no suspense? > I am thinking how can I create an effect in the story to make my readers constantly ask the question, how will this end?, like the novels I mentioned above. The relevant concept here is that of the driving question. The driving question of your story is the one that readers expect to learn the ans... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to describe something visual in preparation of said visual? I've been writing an actual visual novel for a few years, so I'm going to approach this from a game development perspective as much as a writing perspective. To help me with this problem, I borrowed a technique from the VN Katawa Shoujo. The images for the character sprites are all named using a pat... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What can a fight scene prove about characters? As Totumus Maximus noted in a comment, the fact that your character loses the fight shows, right off the bat, that she is not going to be an overpowered Mary-Sue who wins everything without even trying. The fact that she can't defeat the creature (and probably knows she can't) but tries anyway shows ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is my book too similar to Harry Potter? TL;DR: Your story will inevitably be compared to Harry Potter purely because of how iconic and influential it is within the "magical school" genre, but I definitely wouldn't say it's too similar. > The story takes place in a fictional country I created. Harry Potter takes place in England. So t... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Making a prolonged training montage work I had this same problem while writing my ongoing superhero story. It starts with the obligatory origin arc: the protagonist gains his powers, is taken in by the government agency that regulates superheroes, learns how to control and utilise his abilities, and is then sent out to confront the Starter ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Death as person - A funny part of the story? Or serious stuff? Discworld aside, as I'm sadly not very familiar with it, I can think of at least two examples of Death personified being an important, serious character: - "The Book Thief", both the original novel and the film adaptation. While Death is not the main character, he is the narrator, and his role is tr... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Brands to use, brands not to use Not using real brands can give you more creative freedom Funnily enough, I have an example of this from just the other day. I was writing a scene where my protagonist meets his soon-to-be love interest (who's also secretly a supervillain bank robber) in a nightclub. To demonstrate her wealth, I had ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Fiction Writing - has it all been done before? My personal creative mantra is cribbed straight from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: > If it doesn't already exist, I should just make it myself. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever written a story combining the "save our school by forming a club" set-up of Love Live, with the pure dest... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Do readers not like a book if it's too dark and the characters almost never win? The specific problem you're trying to avoid is called "Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy". If you feel like destroying your productivity for the next week, you can look it up on TV Tropes. People can (and do) get turned off a story if it's too dark for too much of the time. There are shows I've droppe... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Disposable Characters As the other answers have noted, the cast of Game of Thrones do not count as "disposable characters". A character is only really disposable if their only contribution to the plot is getting killed (and if their getting killed doesn't contribute anything to the plot, you'll want to ask yourself why th... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to refer to a character who doesn't know her name? If you find it easier to write the novel in third-person, then you should write the novel in third-person. Regarding how to handle switching first-person perspectives, I'm sure there's a question about that here already, but I can't find it - in any case, I would not recommend doing it within chapter... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Convergent, parallel plotlines okay? If you had a larger number of plot branches, I would caution you about it, and suggest perhaps trimming one or two of them down. I can think of a few stories with 5-6 plot branches, or even more, and they tend to go quite badly: - Volume 4 of RWBY splits its time over six different branches (Ruby, W... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How are suspected persons referred to in news articles? Speaking as someone from the UK, I don't believe there is any such anonymity here. The suspect will be named as soon as the press finds out what their name is. The only exception is when they're under a certain age (either 16 or 18), in which case they will be introduced as "a 1X-year-old suspect, wh... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How can you make "evil vs evil" interesting? > Both are criminals with no redeeming qualities There's your problem. You have a pair of one-dimensional cartoon supervillains who are evil just because. Those kinds of villains are unrealistic and, these days, tend to be less well-received than more nuanced villains. And in describing them, you've... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |