Activity for Galastel‭

Type	On...	Excerpt	Status	Date
Answer	—	A: In a "Gatsby" type story, how does a narrator relate what he doesn't get to see? In Jane Austen's novels, for example, it happens more than once that characters learn about an event second-hand: > Darling, I've just heard that... Or > It is only the desire to be useful that compels me to tell you that... This allows you to introduce events that your narrator couldn't have wit... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How much can I trust my players to remember previous states of the story and not get confused? My gaming experience is with Bioware games. In those games, choices you make significantly affect the way the game ends. Consequently, it is quite common to play multiple playthroughs to achieve the end you want, or to return to an earlier savepoint and tweak choices - that is, doing manually what yo... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: The psychology of finishing a piece of fiction Yup, I'm quite familiar with that feeling, in both my creative writing and my academic writing. (Albeit, it doesn't depress me - it makes me facepalm, grunt my teeth, and start revising. But the frustration and disappointment are definitely there.) What happens is, I have this shining image in my min... (more)	—	almost 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to write a Complete Monster? Look at RL complete monsters. They exist. What makes them complete monsters? What makes them who they are? Hitler wanted to see his country return to its glory days. That goal is not deviant in itself. His racism wasn't uncommon at the time either, or he wouldn't have had such a following. He crosse... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to write about characters and places you aren't personally familiar with? You mean, what if you're a resident of country A, writing about a citizen of country B travelling in country C? Go ahead, enjoy yourself. Jules Verne, for example, had never visited the places he wrote about: Africa, Australia, the Pacific etc. The MCs of his Les Enfants du capitaine Grant are Scott... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Can I include Acknowledgement page in a novel? An acknowledgement page in novels usually appears in the end , rather than the beginning as you would see in scientific writings. There's one in Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, there's one in Naomi Novik's Uprooted, there's one in Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and th... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to open a novel? The way you open a novel largely depends on what kind of novel you're writing. If you're writing a humorous novel, there should be something humorous right on the first page. Look, for example, at Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens: > It was a nice day. > All the days had been nice. Ther... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is it okay to write a story where the protagonist is a Terrorist? Can you? Yes. As @Cloudchaser points out, it is being done, increasingly more commonly. Do I wish such stories did not exist? YES. Terrorist attacks are very much a part of my life. There's a failed attempt every week where I live, on average once a month they do not fail. When I was a child, it wa... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to avoid writing irritating fan fictions? No matter how good your fanfiction is, no matter how good your fiction is, no matter how good anything you do is, there will be trolls using vile language to put you down. There's not much you can do about them except ignore them. That said, the question of what things to avoid like the plague when ... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Would a character displaying the opposite of one of their characteristics break immersion? Even a generally rational character might have issues that cause them to snap and act irrationally. For example, in Star Trek TOS, in the episode with the Horta, Spock (the epitome of rationality) is all rational and "Captain, we must preserve life, we must attempt to figure out what the creature's ... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Question	—	Referencing modern pop culture in science fiction A geek today is quite likely to reference the pop culture of 30 years ago: "Do or do not, there is no try", "Beam me up, Scotty" and "Ground control to Major Tom" are easily and commonly recognisable. (The first is Star Wars, the second is associated with Star Trek though it never appears verbatim, t... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do you verify information? Little Details is a livejournal fact-checking community for writers. They are not currently as active as I'd like, but you can find there huge amounts of tiny details for writers, sorted by topic. I have found them to be very useful. When they are active, they are happy to answer exactly the sort of ... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to depict writing from a different time period? A character in 1348 would be speaking Middle English, not modern English at all. Middle English is so different from modern English, that it is a distinct language (source). The same, I suppose, would be true of other European languages as well. So, whatever your 1348 writing would have been, you wou... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Do I need to repeat character descriptions of main characters from one book to the next? Whether or not your sequel can be read as a standalone novel, in the years that pass between the publication of one book and the next, it is quite likely that your readers would have forgotten some things. You should offer them a reminder. That said, if you repeat everything, it might be boring for ... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Question	—	Foregone conclusion of novel's first part I'm writing a war sci-fi novel. At the start of the novel, my MC really wants to get into a particular unit, let's call it Space-Marines. His struggle through the training serves to showcase his high motivation, the fact that the soldiers are prepared as well as they can possibly be before being sent... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Should foreshadowing be close to the main event? I don't think it is universally true that foreshadowing should be close to the event. For example, Frodo's inability to cast the Ring into the Cracks of Doom is foreshadowed by his inability to cast it into the fireplace in Bag End, right in the beginning of the Lord of the Rings. Or, another example... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do you keep a villainous character from being offensive to a particular group? In addition to real war veterans whom you don't want to hurt, there's one more side to WWII. Intellectually, I know that there were good people and less good people among American troops at the time. Emotionally, Allied Troops are the reason any of my family survived. I owe a debt of gratitude to eve... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do I make "foreshadowing" more relevant in the early going? Bootcamp is a harrowing experience. (Been there, done that.) You can make it interesting simply by having your character struggle through it, mentally and physically. It's usually more interesting to read about some sort of struggle, than about smooth going. Then, any foreshadowing you need to do, y... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Likeable characters with deplorable professions? You can't judge a period character based on modern values. In a setting (real or imaginary) when slaves are owned, and society does not challenge it, it would be anachronistic for your character to refuse to own slaves. Such modern values stick out like a sore thumb. As long as your character is not... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Do writers copy other writers? Stealing is bad. Quite aside from it being illegal, what satisfaction would you draw from presenting someone else's work? It's not yours, the praise it gets is not to you. Being inspired by another author, on the other hand, is good. A work of art should inspire. And there's nothing wrong with delib... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Why would a translator leave comments all over the translation? If I understand correctly, the comments are in the original text. That's what the translator's note says: > the interlinear comments (IC) and marginal comments (MC) in the original text If something is in the original text, the translator has to translate it. What the translator did is adapt the fo... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Question	—	How to plan a short story for a given word count? Many short story competitions, at least in Israel, set a theme and a word count: up to 2500 words, 2000-5000 words, etc. I often find myself starting short stories for such competitions, and hitting the word count upper limit halfway into the story I want to tell. The only times I managed to stay wit... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Trying to figure out the correct type punctuation for dialogues For regular dialogue, you don't need italics. Quotation marks are what marks dialogue. Italics are usually reserved for non-verbal communication. That could be the voice in your character's head and your character's replies to it, or that too could be in quotation marks - depending on how you want t... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Describing something that doesn't exist The thing with an imaginary object is this: people aren't going to see the exact same thing as you see in your mind, no matter how many words you pour on it. Each reader is going to imagine what you describe in a slightly different way. For example, Tolkien describes hobbits in quite some detail. Ye... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Do I have to show my characters making up after an argument, or can it be implied when we see them on good terms again? If the argument is a minor one, and the characters are people you'd expect to generally get along (good friends, parent/child etc.), you can safely skip the making up. In long-term relationships of any sort, it is natural that minor arguments occur, and then get resolved. It's not a big issue, it mig... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Tools for organising anthologies This would be a technically advanced solution, but if you are comfortable coding, you might want to use a database management system (DBMS). One you probably already have is Micorsoft Access (comes with the Office suite) or OpenOffice Base (comes with OpenOffice, available on both Windows and Linux).... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Slow buildup vs sudden introduction The " Build up to it" route is the conventional way to tell the story. The progression is more or less linear. The protagonist's struggle to unlock the power is bound together with his struggle against the villain. The " Introduce suddenly, explain later" route offers you several interesting, not mu... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What happens when you translate a quotation? In what context? In a context of, for example, a newspaper, the quote is translated, and remains a quote. For example, today Israeli newspapers were all translating the statement of the Kensington Palace regarding Kate Middleton giving birth to a third child. It remained a quote, even though at leas... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What is the most fundamental advice when it comes to writing? I don't know about "looking back" and "career", I'm still rather looking forward to that... :) That said, one piece of advice that really struck me, stuck with me and stayed with me is Neil Gaiman's " Make good art": Write what you love writing, enjoy the process, do it for the art - not for the mo... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to write two seemingly different characters that are actually the same person? Do you mean a Jekyll/Hyde plot? Such a plot twist needs some amount of foreshadowing, so that the savvy reader might suspect, while the less savvy reader would have a moment of "Aha! now it all makes sense!" Such foreshadowing can come in the form of information that Jekyll receives and Hyde respon... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to relate stormy weather to sadness? It's in the language: words like "grey", "dreary" evoke sadness. The sky might be weeping (though that's a little over the top and overused). A lonely seagull might be crying plaintively. Wind might be bighting. Adjectives and adverbs associated with sadness would relate the stormy weather to the emo... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do I write a deep conversation scene? How do you write a conversation? You write the dialogue: what guy A said, what guy B said. Consider how they say it, how they talk at all: are they open with each other, or are there things they are not comfortable sharing? Is there a non-verbal communication between them, do they understand each oth... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Help with my story - elements of a scene One thing you want to consider is how you want the scene to read: - Do you want the scene to have sexual overtones? - Do you want the girl to appear weak, a passive sheep, (making the reader identify, at least partially, with the hunter-vampire), or do you want her an active heroine fighting off a m... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: No time to deal with emotional trauma If your story takes place over the course of a month, your character is still going to be very much dealing with trauma by the end of it. Take the RL case of the Itamar Massacre: 12-years-old Tamar Fogel came home from a youth outing to find her parents murdered, her baby sister's severed head in th... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Question	—	How to manage getting depressed by what my main character goes through? I'm writing a war (sci-fi) novel. The MC dies in the end. It's not as thoroughly depressing as "All Quiet on the Western Front", but Remarque's work is definitely one source of inspiration. Now, partway through writing, I find that writing is too painful for me to continue. It's not that I'm writing... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: A novel in which the only dialogue is internal? "The Old Man and the Sea" comes to mind as a novel where I don't recall any dialogue. Santiago talks to himself, talks to his hand, talks to the fish, etc., but that isn't really dialogue. Or, of you wish, it's internal dialogue. How does it work? You've got one character, against the elements. Nobo... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: "Calm" vs Adventurous Main Protagonist Since everyone is set on a proactive character, let me present the reactive choice as at least viable. The hobbits in The Lord of the Rings are anything but proactive. They would like nothing better than to sit in their holes and smoke pipeweed. Frodo has no desire whatsoever to be the one taking th... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is blending a largely illustrated book like James Gurney's "Dinotopia" and a dramatic and more serious plot a bad idea? There are heavily illustrated books with weighty serious content. Terry Pratchett's Last Hero and Neil Gaiman's Stardust are two examples I have standing on my shelf. Both are very much not children's books. You want to go even more serious, there are the famous illustrations by Gustave Doré to Dan... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How explicit can violence and sex be in a YA novel? Let me give you an answer from a different perspective: not what Young Adults are reading, not what appears in modern YA fiction, but what I was reading as a teenager (12-16), and how it made me feel. I was not reading YA fiction at all. I felt it was too simplistic, written down to some audience, n... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is it okay to switch protagonists between books, if the main protagonist is a hidden "actor"? I wouldn't say that the premise that you shouldn't switch protagonists between novels is an absolute truth in the first place. What's so frustrating about reading about new characters? Doesn't one do that every time one picks a new book? Isn't that what one picks a new book for? So two books happen ... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is it acceptable to break the story up into POVs to show how the characters' stories all tie together? What you are describing is quite acceptable. G.R.R. Martin uses this method in "Song of Ice and Fire", with many many more characters: each chapter follows a different POV character, with 7+ POV characters per book. Another example would be Diana Wynne Jones's "The Merlin Conspiracy", alternating bet... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What are some clear differences in theme/story between children's, middle grade, and young adult fantasy? There are no clear-cut distinctions. Children are different. One child might be reading at 6 what another wouldn't touch until 12. For example, King Matt the First is explicitly written for children (under 8). It deals with themes like death, war, responsibility, and it doesn't have a happy ending. I... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do you assess the value of an individual scene? You can indeed distil a story only to the scenes essential to plot progression. This is the trend of modern-day literature, perhaps influenced by the way movies are made. However, one of the differences between a movie and a book is that you are not expected to experience a whole book, start to finis... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Should I write scared? Neil Gaiman said "Make good art." In the same speech he says: > The moment that you feel that just possibly you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself - that's the moment you may be starting to get i... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Creative license to invent a sibling to a historical figure? Can you? Yes. There is nothing wrong with it, either legally or ethically. What you're doing would come under "artistic license". In fact, Alexandre Dumas' "The Man in the Iron Mask", for instance, relies on similar artistic license: as far as we know, Louis XIV had no twin brother. So you'd be in go... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Dialog problems with a character with only one name? My first thought is, if you're struggling with this issue, why not make your character struggle with it too? If she has no family name, then in situations where she needs to be addressed by one, she'd feel uncomfortable. Exactly because this conveys social status, she would have some emotions towards... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to get valuable feedback on the quality of my storytelling? What you're looking for is beta readers. Beta readers would read all your work, and look at exactly the things you are unsure about: general flow, plot holes, etc. Who can be beta readers? Friends, if they are the kind of people who could point a finger at something and say "this doesn't work at all... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is it better to avoid names with a difficult pronunciation in Middle Grade fiction? Short answer: definitely, absolutely, wholeheartedly 3. Long answer: Sir Terry Pratchett wrote somewhere that since he was reading a lot as a child, when he was little there were many words he knew only in writing, but had never heard spoken. For example, it was years before he learnt that "ogres" w... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is it okay if I wrote a story based on true historical events? What you describe, if I understand it correctly, is historical fiction. That's a genre with a long and proud tradition. It includes works as diverse as Ivanhoe, War and Peace, The Three Musketeers, and All Quiet on the Western Front. It can be close to historical events, which, as Mark Baker points o... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to best pace information reveals to the reader Pushing off from Alexander's answer, when something "strange" happens in a book I am reading, and I notice it, (sometimes a bit of strangeness can be a subtle hint that I'd only see upon rereading), I either trust the author that this is a hook, to be explained later, or I am frustrated by random odd... (more)	—	about 6 years ago

• ← Previous
• 1
• 2
• …
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 11
• 12
• 13
• Next →