Activity for Galastel
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: What makes a character irredeemable? The trait that makes Dolores Umbridge, and other characters, repulsive, is sadism. Enjoying the suffering of others, enjoying causing pain - we find that unforgivable. A villain who hurts others due to some twisted perception of it being right and necessary - they can (theoretically) come to understa... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How to "Start as close to the end as possible", and why to do so? Having googled Kurt Vonnegut's writing tips, I found several different explanations of tip #5. Since all explanations have some merit (as far as being useful advice), and since I don't know which one Vonnegut actually intended, I'll bring them all here. The first explanation is the one Jedediah sugg... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Double lies as sources of conflict in a single arc Human beings are complex and flawed creatures. We do not each have just the one flaw. We have multiple failings, and multiple lies we tell ourselves. Now, for a story one has to simplify reality somewhat - focus only on those lies and flaws that are conductive to telling the story. But if you simplif... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How to convey the anatomy of a humanoid race? We tend to assume whatever we're reading about is humanoid, unless we're told otherwise. (In fact, multiple stories exploit this trope to reveal later in the story, or in the very end, that the character wasn't in fact human.) Which is to say, your readers are going to start with the assumption that ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How can I get into the mindset to write? "Waiting for the mood to strike you" is bad practice. Your writing muscle, like any other, needs to be exercised every day, if you can, or at least as often as you have time. (Some of us have jobs and whatnot, writing every day might not be possible.) If you have the time to write, there are several... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How do I introduce dark themes? Four chapters in, your readers should have an idea what they're in for. Not everything that's going to happen, but certainly a hint. Once you've hinted that there is darkness, you can skirt it, turn your back on it for a while, or plunge right into it as you see fit in different parts of your story. ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How to use special characters in footnote numbering within Word According to this guide, which uses Microsoft Word 2016 for its screenshots (but things shouldn't have changed too much for other versions), you can restart footnote numbering for each section of your work, and you can pick the number format separately for each section. To open the footnotes configu... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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Two footnote numbering sequences Inspired by this question, a more complex question: how can I have two simultaneous sequences of footnotes? For example, suppose I am translating a book. The book contains footnotes, numbered in sequence. But, I also feel the need to add the occasional "translator's note". (This is not the place to ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Detail vs. filler You are right in thinking both that details are needed - they make the scene come alive, and that the details shouldn't be random. I use the scenery details first and foremost to set the mood of a scene. You use a meeting in a forest as an example. Is your character comfortable in the forest? Does s... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: What are the advantages and disavantages of different triggers for character transformation? @Amadeus mentions constraints. Constraints are like the walls of a house - they are limits, but also supports of the structure. The constraints define the shape of the story you tell. If change is forced on the character by some outside circumstance, such as time, your story must perforce deal with ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How to realistically describe pain? When I don't know how to do something, I look for examples of how somebody else did it. Here's an example from Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. The main character, a wizard, had a kinetic shield spell ready, while the enemies came with a flamethrower. Turns out shield doesn't stop heat: > It hurt... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Basing my protagonist on myself There are pitfalls into which you are more likely to fall if you base your protagonists on yourself and/or people you care about. These pitfalls can trouble you regardless, but if you're basing a character on yourself, you need to be particularly aware of them. Here are some, in no particular order: ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How to clarify between imagined sensations and "real" fantasy events? If the main character isn't sure whether what they're seeing is a drug-induced fantasy or a real occurrence, perhaps the reader doesn't need to know either, at least not at first. If a character has been drugged and is hallucinating, what's happening is "real" to him. He experiences things and respo... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Recounting events in dialogue I will second @MarkBaker and @Amadeus: avoid the repetition."But I need the response," you say. "It doesn't flow," you say. Very well, that's the problem you need to solve - how to make it flow despite cutting away the part of the dialogue that would be boring to the reader. Tolkien faced a similar ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Averting Bathos Bathos is not the mere fact of a serious moment being followed by a light one. It is an intrusion of a cheap vulgar laugh into a dramatic scene. It undermines the seriousness of the stakes, the drama of the scene, the meaningfulness of your story. It says "don't take any of this too seriously." Which... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Subverting the emotional woman and stoic man trope There's more you can do with a trope than play it straight or subvert it. You can play with it in various ways: invert it (which you did), parody it, lampshade it, exploit it, and much much more. And you can avert it - that is, the trope just isn't present in your story at all. There are countless tr... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Is it a good idea to leave minor world details to the reader's imagination? When in The Lord of the Rings Tolkien writes > ‘But it is a heavy burden. So heavy that none could lay it on another. I do not lay it on you. But if you take it freely, I will say that your choice is right; and though all the mighty Elf-friends of old, Hador, and Húrin, and Túrin, and Beren himself ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Resolving moral conflict You're saying you've written yourself into a corner. You appear to have to options, and you don't like either. You're forgetting: you are the writer. You are god. Your story is not set in stone, your choices are not limited to those two options. You can find a third option, or you can change the pres... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: As a discovery writer, how do I complete an unfinished novel (which has highly diverged from the original plot ) after a time-gap? As @sesquipedalias says, for a discovery writer the first draft can often be about figuring out what your novel is, what you're trying to say. You say you have story threads that you don't know where to take, questions the answers to which you don't know, problems you don't know how to solve. Treat ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: I feel like most of my characters are the same, what can I do? You talk of your characters as one or two basic characteristics, and that's it. That's where your problem is. There is more to a person than a short tag. Think about your friends. Chances are, you can describe them all as "lawful good", or "friendly geek", or whatever kind of people you surround your... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How to write characters doing illogical things in a believable way? The "stupid action" of your character needs to line up with the traits that character usually shows. It cannot be a random action taken out of the blue - that would, as @Amadeus points out, break the immersion. What do I mean by "lines up with the character's usual traits"? Let me give you some exa... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Should you only use colons and full stops in dialogues? Some people have some sort of dislike for semicolons. See The Good, the Bad and the Semicolon. If you're not comfortable using semicolons at all, that's up to you. But if you do normally use semicolons, and are only not comfortable using them in dialogue, think of it this way: in dialogue, we use pa... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Can I conceal an antihero's insanity - and should I? As others have pointed out, since you are in the main character's head, it's very hard to hide the fact that she feels no empathy. We are in her head, we know what she thinks and feels. That said, if we agree with the character's goals, their actions might appear understandable, a bit cold but ultim... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Where's the balance between realism and story? If I understand your question correctly, you're asking to which extent the Rule of Cool trope would let you get away with things in a relatively realistic story. The answer to that is, distinct story elements have to match the overall tone of the story. Otherwise, they stick out like a sore thumb. I... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Writing a love interest for my hero Here's an easy test: if for all intents and purposes the woman in your story could be replaced with a golden chalice, you're in trouble. Someone stole the guy's chalice, he wants to get it back. Someone crashed the guy's chalice, he wants revenge. Worst offenders are the "if you save the princess, yo... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: What techniques authors use to keep track of their cast? The only technique there is really is keeping some sort of "character sheet" for each character. If you can keep them all in your mind, that's great, but I guess you wouldn't have been asking the question if it were that easy for you. Otherwise, people use different platforms. I like OneNote, I've s... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Male viewpoint in an erotic novel Erotica is not a genre I read, but the lusting male gaze in some fantasy and sci-fi - I cannot say that I always find it offensive. On the contrary - I can find it quite pleasant. I want to be lusted after this way. Which is, I think, the key to your question: consider how a woman would want to be w... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: how to tell if a book will be a bestseller? A lot of factors collide to make a book a bestseller. It's not just the writing - there's also how original the concept is, and how much it speaks to the audience, the right place, the right time, and probably more. The same book might not have sold as well had it been published a few years earlier o... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Real-world issues with using an alias If what you seek is a measure of anonymity, but not to actually hide who you are, you can use your first name and initial. You can be Lois L. or Clark K. Even if your name is highly unique, it is very unlikely you will be recognised by your first name alone. But when you do want to be recognised, you... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Doubt about the concept of "true (or complex) character" Your character takes an action. It all happens in your imagination. Well, imagine then: could your character take the opposite action? Could they, proceeding with your example, choose not to help? If right now you're thinking "maybe they were really busy"or something along those lines, you are maki... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How can I create deep personal stakes? There is a scene in Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver which, I believe, holds the answer to your question: > I didn't mean to say no to him that day. I had never said no to him before, because I knew if we did he would hurt us, and he hurt us anyway already, and so I knew he would hurt us even worse if ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Doubt about a particular point of view on how to do character creation You're asking how a character, a creation of your imagination, can have free will. It's not easy for me to answer, because "they do". On a very fundamental level, that's what happens when I write. I 'find' my characters, I 'find out' who they are. I can look at an in-story event and say 'this is true... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Using font to highlight a god's speech in dialogue Visually distinguishing a character's dialogue is not a bad idea. Sir Terry Pratchett used this tool quite a lot. Most notably, his Death spoke in ALL CAPS, including small caps when needed. (Small caps make reading significantly easier than just all caps.) There was also a special font used for the ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How can I portray a character with no fear of death, without them sounding utterly bored? Psychopathy is characterised by persistent antisocial behaviour, impaired empathy and remorse. (source: Wikipedia) Your character needs to care for others. Watching a person get hurt, let alone killed, isn't easy. It should never become easy. That's something your character would respond to. That i... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How to differentiate between two people with the same name in a story? In a written medium, your readers can only identify your characters by what you give them. We cannot "see" your characters. So, if at any point in the story there's a John, and then again there's a John, they're the same John, unless you give us something else to distinguish the two Johns. "Somethin... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How does a person get an entry on Britannica, Encyclopedia.com etc.? Like @celtschk says in a comment, traditional encyclopedias like Britannica have professional editors. It is their task to decide what gets an entry and what doesn't. This is different from Wikipedia, which is edited by anybody and everybody willing. Since traditional editors have only that many ho... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Don't look at what I did there How did Jack Sparrow escape that island he got stranded on? "Sea turtles". He escaped somehow, and he isn't going to tell us how. In fact, not telling us adds to his mystique. And he knows it, which is why he isn't telling us. Of course, there's an issue of POV here. Jack Sparrow isn't the POV chara... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: The unknown and unexplained in science fiction Your question makes me think first and foremost of Asimov's robots. We know how they work, right? There are the Three Laws. And they have a positronic brain. Wait, what? What on earth is a "positronic brain"? How is that even possible? What does that mean? When asked "why positrons", Asimov freely ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Spicing up a moment of peace Take a look at The Lord of the Rings as an example. Between the tense episode in Moria, that culminated with Gandalf's fall while the other characters escape, and the mounting tension of the Anduin which culminates with Boromir's death and the breaking of the Fellowship, there's not a passage, but th... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How do I portray irrational anger in first person? To the person experiencing anger, it won't appear irrational. To them, there's a very good reason why they're angry, why they're infuriated. What you need is to show the reason. Now, the reason might not be what's right in front of them right now, causing the anger to appear irrational to the outsi... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Do I need to change the title of my book because it is similar to the Transformers Universe? 'Primus' means 'first' in Latin. Just as you cannot copyright the word 'first', you cannot copyright 'primus'. Same goes for 'prime'. Or any other common word. If in some fantasy universe, the entity that creates whatevers is called 'The King', I can still have kings and queens in my literature, and ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Should I use the words "pyromancy" and "necromancy" even if they don't mean what people think they do? The meaning of words is not set in stone. A word that used to mean one thing, can change over time to mean another. A hundred years ago, 'gay' used to mean 'merry'. Now it is no longer used in this sense. Sometimes the meaning of a word contradicts its own etymology. As an example, the French 'embras... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: To what extent should we fear giving offense? First, I would argue for the right to make mistakes It's not unheard of, surely, inadvertently saying something wrong? That's what "I'm sorry" is for? Our starting point is "normally people do not seek to offend". Well, why shouldn't it be enough? G.R.R. Martin made a similar comment in an interview... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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To what extent should we fear giving offense? Recently we have seen multiple questions on various aspects of political correctness. They have sparked some measure of disagreement, which is what I wanted to examine here. To what extent should we fear giving offense with what we write? To what extent should we, as writers, actively seek not to gi... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Compelling story with the world as a villain @Monica and others talk about Man vs. Environment stories. Since that has been explored, let me take your premise in a different direction. Another way by which the world might be a compelling villain is if it is guided by a malevolent god. If the cards are stacked against your character, if their l... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Author and Illustration owner Not a lawyer. You paid an illustrator to provide artwork for your book. You (supposedly) own the right to publish the artwork - that's what you paid the artist for. But that doesn't make you the illustrator of the work. You are not an author/illustrator. You are an author. The illustrator would need... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How do we distinguish how a character pronounces a word and how it is spelled in a dialogue? The trope you're looking for is referred to as phonetic accent, or Funetik Aksent. That is, spelling out words as they are spoken by a particular character, rather than they way they should be written. This is a trope you should be very wary of using. It makes the text significantly harder to read. ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Avoiding racist tropes in fantasy First of all, learn about the fantasy species you want to write about You want to populate your world with the traditional fantasy species, but your own perception of them appears to be based on only a few pop-culture reference points. As an example, you talk of dreadlocks-wearing orcs as if this wa... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Are illustrations in novels frowned upon? There are exceptions to the "no illustrations" trend. For example, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel is filled with black-and-white illustrations reminiscent of the wood engravings that would have accompanied 19th-century books. This is in line with the novel's general style, a tribute t... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: My scenes seem too fast You say that in your head there are pauses in the dialogue, but in the text they just aren't there. Well then, insert the pauses. > ‘How terrifying!’ said Frodo. There was another long silence. The sound of Sam Gamgee cutting the lawn came in from the garden. > ‘How long have you known this?’ aske... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |