Activity for Galastel
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: How do I design characters for an open-ended series? There are two cardinally different ways you can treat your characters in a series. In some series, the characters remain the same, facing the "challenge of the week". They do not undergo any significant change themselves. A famous example of such structure is Star Trek, the Original Series. Kirk, Sp... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Which should come first, building my story or building my world? For me (and for the people who answered before me, I see,) story and worldbuilding go together, with the story in the driver's seat. Let me give you an example: Suppose I'm writing a military sci-fi story. First there's the general shape of it - where's the fighting, who's doing the fighting, what ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to interpret a language from a non-speaker's perspective? The meaning of words can be inferred from context. For example, in his book Elantris, Brandon Sanderson has a character insert words from his (fictional) mother-tongue into conversation. > Raoden breathed a sigh of relief. "Whoever you are, I'm glad to see you. I was beginning to think everyone in h... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: YA Literature - Violence I've read the Three Musketeers when I was 10. Here are some reasons I did not find the violence troubling, and how you can apply them to your writing. (And just to clarify, I wasn't a child who didn't mind violence. In fact, by age 14 I still couldn't watch big parts of X-men, for example, because th... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to indicate that the source language is gender-neutral? The only way I see to maintain the effect you're talking about is not to use pronouns. You can use the character's name. You can use their profession / rank / etc. You can say "we did", "they did" (talking about multiple people) since the plural hides gender. If you're describing a group situation, i... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Proper handling of "sophisticated" English usage @MatthewDave is quite right in saying that a sophisticated person's language would be distinguished by lack of 'lower-class' colloquialisms. Add to that impeccable grammar, and a rich vocabulary. By rich vocabulary I do not mean random use of fancy words. Instead, I mean words with a narrower meanin... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to convert a roleplay into a book? The core novels of the Dragonlance series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman started out as this - a D&D campaign. You might find it useful to take a look at their work. In some scenes of Dragons of Autumn Twilight (the first novel) in particular, you can see the heavy D&D influence; for example, the... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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How to research sex for writing? I'm not writing erotica - I'm writing fantasy and sci-fi. But sometimes my characters make love, sometimes in ways I cannot be familiar with. In one story, it's two guys (I'm a girl). In another story, there's a character who uses a wheelchair. How do I research this, so I can get the relevant scene... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Can I state a fact in a first person story? The subject of your sentence can be something other than the MC when you're writing in first person. For example: > My phone rang or > Footsteps were coming down the alley behind me You don't need to always narrate in the active: "I saw", "I heard", "I conquered". You don't even need to specify y... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Exposition: Talking Animals - How do I Reveal This to the Reader? To answer your question, first you would need to answer for yourself the following: - The anthropo-weasels - do they view themselves as the same kind of creature as, say, anthropo-lions? Can anthropo-weasels procreate with antropo-lions? Can / would anthropo-lions eat anthropo-zebras? - How do the a... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Establishing a social circle for a promiscuous character The answer to your questions depends entirely on how you characterise the girl's friends. Are they prudish snobs? Then yes, they would shun her. Otherwise, no reason why they should. If they disagree with how she acts, they might say something, but there's a great difference from this to actually pus... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Describing a strong sexual attraction (on first sight) You are telling that the human is attracted to the alien. Why not show instead? A picture is worth a thousand words, they say, so why not create that picture? Consider what attraction feels like - is there a physiological reaction? Are there thoughts the character is suddenly thinking, that have not... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to describe a mythological creature that English has no vocabulary for? The differences between 'fairy', 'elf' 'goblin' and 'demon' are not negligible. The fact that a dictionary offers you all of them, or that all have been used in different setting in the past, does not imply that all those words mean the same thing, but that in different situations or contexts, they c... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do I finish my stories although I have both ideas and titles for them? An idea is an image. Consider, for example: > The fraternity of critics, in reality a dark brethren, linked by profane rites and blood vows. To destroy an author they sacrifice a child and perform a critical mass… This one is from Neil Gaiman's Sandman, one of many ideas that flow out of a characte... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Sensitivity with disorders/mental illnesses If you succeed in eliciting strong emotions in your readers, you've done good. If you make your readers cry, bite their nails to the quick, put the book down in fear only to pick it up five minutes later - that's a success. Don't be afraid of strong emotions. Neil Gaiman, in the introduction to his s... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: I kinda want to completely annihilate the hero - what would speak against it? If I understand you correctly, on the one hand you want your hero to willingly go through with a selfless sacrifice, wiping himself out of time so he never existed in the first place (or something similar). You feel the plot demands a sacrifice greater than just death. On the other hand, you feel th... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Can dream reveals make good climaxes for a POV’s internal struggle? The trope you're referring to is called All Just a Dream (tv tropes warning). While some authors can pull it off, it is usually considered a bad trope to use. The reason for this is that the "it's all just a dream" reveal is anticlimactic : there's something very dramatic happening, but then it has n... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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How do I create a custom dictionary in OpenOffice? Writing fantasy and sci-fi, I grow a sizeable specialised vocabulary per story (names, locations, fantastical things, etc.) I grow tired of the autocorrect grumbling at this vocabulary, and would much rather have it poke me when I misspell those words. At the same time, I do not want to pollute the ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Does point of view matter drastically? If you look at older literature, Victor Hugo for example, stories do not necessarily start with the main character, and switch between multiple POVs. So in and of itself, there is nothing wrong with using multiple POVs and switching between them. At the same time, you need to be clear on whose thoug... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to stop rushing writing It is not terrible practice to write some parts sloppily, if you later come back and edit them. I am familiar with the desire to get to certain scenes, and yet I need at least the general shape of the scenes before, in order to get the "interesting" scene to play out right. So sometimes I rush throu... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Invoking Deliberate Values Dissonance The values of the Middle Ages existed for more reasons than church dogma. For example, sleeping with a girl before marrying her meant a fair chance of her getting pregnant. Which was also why men wanted their bride to be a virgin - when resources are scarce, nobody wants to raise another man's child.... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: What sorts of characters does a superhero team need? A superhero team is first of all a team. You might therefore find the question How to write a story about a team? useful. With that in hand, you must also determine whether your team are all superheroes, or there's just the one superhero and the rest are regular people. If your team is a team of su... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do I indicate that my character is speaking a different language than the one used for narration? Since you're telling the story in first person, you can say outright that the conversation is not in the language of the narration. Something like: > I understood StrangeLandian, but I spoke it badly. I should have learnt it better before I decided to travel. To make it not boring, blend the mentio... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: "Stealing" jokes If a joke is a century old and you've heard it told a hundred times, you can reuse it. You can modify it, you can build on it - by this point it's not "owned" by anyone. Trouble is, by this point your readers have also heard this joke a hundred times. Sometimes it can work - in a sci-fi setting, an o... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: What makes "thrilling" writing? The defining characteristic of the thriller genre is suspense. That is, the audience expects something bad to happen. Suspense can be created if the audience knows more than the main character. For example, when Little Red Riding Hood starts talking to the wolf, we expect her to be eaten, while she ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Respecting classic dramatic structure in a documentary If I understand you correctly, the subject of your documentary is standing on the brink of a major change: there's his life up to "now" (what you call "act 1"), and then there's the way things will unfold from now on. The thing is, you do not yet know how things will unfold - you're documenting even... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do you make two characters fall in love? How do people in Real Life fall in love? They get to know each other. They share some interests, so they enjoy spending time together, and have common things to talk about. They respect each other. Each has qualities the other finds positive, perhaps even admirable. They are willing to forgive each o... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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How to improve a scene where the drama is one-sided and not with the POV character? I have a scene I struggle with: it has potential for inherent drama, but it reads as an info dump. In a high-fantasy setting (more or less), character Alpha, a 14-year old daughter of a nobleman comes out as a lesbian to character Brava, a fertility priestess. The scene occurs relatively early in th... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Translating worldbuilding into an interesting opening A related question: How to open a novel? It sounds like your prologue opens in medias res - in the middle of the action. You already have orcs marching, preparing to fight. Since, in terms of plot, that's the starting point you've chosen for your story, it makes sense that the atmosphere of the scen... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Are characters' internal thoughts written in past or present tense? Either can be used, as @DPT says. > I heard a loud screech from beyond the gates, then silence. 'What is going on?' I thought. Here, effectively, you are presenting the thought as internal monologue. The character is effectively talking to himself. You therefore treat it as if you were writing dial... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: What should I do if I can't properly formulate the personality of one of my characters in my novel? Since you are writing a group, consider what character traits are missing in the group without the character you're struggling to write. Does your group have a comic-relief? A moral compass? A quiet steady person? Etc. Remember also that opposing traits make each character stand out: like Spock and ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Anticlimactic ending as a surprise after climax? As a gamer, when you gear up for a battle, you want to get a battle. Mass Effect 3, for example, was criticised for not having a final boss, even though the way the story was structured there was no way it could have a final boss. (Instead there's surviving waves of enemies, followed by an extended ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What should I keep in mind when reviewing and improving already published chapters? You mean you have your first chapters already online, and now you want to go back and edit them? Your main problem would be that most readers wouldn't go back and re-read the edited material. So if you intend to rely on an edit for stuff you write in the future to make sense, you're in a bit of a pr... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Are there any general rules or guidelines for using newly coined word(s) or neologism? A newly coined word is more likely not to be understood by your readers. Consider: your readers might not hang out in the particular circle where the word was coined and is known. In effect, such a word is not different from a dialect word that's only likely to be understood in a specific city or sta... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What software/techniques do people use to gather ideas? Wiki and Flash are all well and good, but here's an answer for lazy people, like me. I use OneNote. It's already on your Windows, and it requires 0 level of tech-savvy. I am a Wikipedia editor, so it's not like that's beyond my technical skills, but when I come to planning my story, I want to do just... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Do I have to keep saying “_____ thought,”after I put italics? First, you'd need to establish the convention that you use italics for thoughts. I've seen different books use italics for thoughts, telepathy, foreign-language inserts, and more. The reader would need to know what you use italics for. (See, here I've used italics to stress a word.) Once you've esta... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Will it be disappointing for the reader to not know who the main character is until the end? There are more things to consider, with regards to who is the main character, than who is "the most important to the plot". Who is the POV character(s)? Whose inner thoughts do we hear? Whose emotions do we follow? (The POV character is not necessarily the MC - Sherlock Holmes is a famous example to ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is my story too similar to an existing published work? Many stories share similarities. If one story is about a school, it doesn't mean that no story ever again can be about a school. If one story is about magic, it doesn't mean that other stories can't also be about magic. Michael Ende had a story about a school of magic before Rowling did. Both are per... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Is my story too similar to an existing published work? This is meant to be a canonical question, to which particular cases can be referred. We've had several particular instances of this question in the past - "is my story too similar to specific story X". The older ones got answered, the newer ones got closed as off-topic. These questions however never... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What about pictures in a story book Illustrated books for adults are not uncommon. Consider for example the illustrated Lord of the Rings or Stardust. In fact, illustrations might serve as an incentive for fans to buy an extra copy of a book they already own. Here's something for you to consider, however: Printing a book costs money.... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: The role of the supernatural in hard science fiction My first instinct was to say "you can't" - the very essence of the science fiction genre is that things are not supernatural - they make sense within the in-universe rules, if not right from the start, then in the end, when we get to the bottom of the mystery. But then I thought of some examples to ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: The role of inexplicable events in hard science fiction A little before Einstein's time, people were saying there's no sense in going into physics, since almost all the questions have already been answered, we understand everything that can be understood, there's only one or two unanswered issues, and those are going to be solved soon. Then came Einstein ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Dialogue in First Person Fiction (Detective Mystery) You're asking whether in a story narrated in first person, you can have dialogue? Of course you can. Your MC is telling the story. Why shouldn't he tell the dialogue as is - the others' words as well as his own? Here's an example for you, From the first chapter of Jim Butcher's Storm Front (the firs... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How can I make my anti-heroic protagonist more likable? You say it yourself: > I feel that he's nothing more than a soulless archetype A soulless archetype is not going to be likeable, whether they are a positive or a negative archetype. So how do you give your character a soul? - What does your MC care about? You say "himself", but what does it mean? ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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How can I write about historical realities that readers mistakenly believe are unrealistic? Readers have certain expectations about locations and time periods, things they "know". For example, people "know" that everybody in the Persian Empire was brown-skinned, that houses in Ancient Rome were one or two floors high, and that up until the late renaissance people did not use forks for eatin... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Writing a short story set in a place I’ve never been You are writing in English, your characters are going to speak English, but that is in fact a "translation convention", your characters "in reality" speaking German instead. Is that the issue you're asking about? Such situations are in fact very common in writing. Consider a book translated from Ger... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How does one add puns in another language? I have recently had to deal with a similar issue in my own writing: modern Hebrew names too have meanings. Common names might mean 'horizon','spring', etc. Actress Gal Gadot's first name means 'wave', for example, (and her last name means 'riverbanks'). Here's how I dealt with this in a story written... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Are translated Basho poems copyrighted? This site here says that the copyright for a translation of a work that is in the public domain belongs to the translator. It makes sense, if you think about it. Consider: if I translate, for example, the Iliad, I'd have to put lots and lots of creative effort into it, and also research etc. That's ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How much value do publishers and editors place on informative/educational content in fiction stories? I think you mistake the meaning of "educational" in this case. "Educational" needn't be only about dry information that's related to what you're writing about. At the heart of a story, there is a moral choice , an ethical discussion. It's very rarely made explicit (and indeed, making it too explicit ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How many characters are too many? Consider, for example, The Lord of the Rings: you've got the Fellowship (nine characters), you've got Bilbo, Elrond, Galadriel, Theoden, Eomer, Eowyn, Denethor, Faramir, Sauron, Saruman, and several more all vital for the story to work, you've got a lot more named side characters. There are other e... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |