Activity for Galastel
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: Any Tips On Writing Extended Recollection In A Novel A crucial question: does the psychiatrist contribute anything to the story, or is he mainly the setting, the excuse as it where, for your protagonist to tell the story? If the psychiatrist makes no meaningful contribution, you can have considerable chunks of your story in first-person narration, no ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How do I present a future free of gender stereotypes without being jarring or overpowering the narrative? Men do wear skirts: kilts, sarongs, hakamas, fustanellas... If your world is culturally diverse, any and all of those might have become common enough. In sci-fi stories in particular, new fashions is something we take in our stride. But skirts are not really the focus of your question, they're just ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: Can a successful book series let the bad guy win? It is perfectly fine for your story to end with the "bad guy" winning. Consider for example George Orwell's 1984: > He loved Big Brother Complete and utter defeat. 1984 is one of last century's masterpieces. @Wetcircuit mentions tragedy in a comment, for good reason. Tragedy does not necessarily i... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How to write a convincing religious myth? One element of religious texts is the antiquated language. Since the text has been canonised, it has not changed while the language moved on. If you look at the Book of Esther as an example, it is very much "just a story". God's name isn't mentioned once in it. And the Book of Lamentations is five i... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How to convert dialogue in to paragraph? First of all, what do you mean by "taking inspiration from a movie"? If you mean copying the dialogue from a movie line for line, you're not allowed to do that. That's plagiarism. I would also question your statement regarding "having no experience with married life". You might not be married yourse... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: Why am I getting a strange double quote (“) in Open Office instead of the ordinary one (")? You need to go to Tools - Autocorrect - Autocorrect Options - Localised Options. There you can pick the kind of double quotes and single quotes you like. (Source. Note the source tries to do the exact opposite - get the curly quotation marks. Shouldn't make a difference though.) (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: Is a lack of character descriptions a problem? Since your novel is already practically finished, you can ask your beta readers if no character descriptions works. Ultimately, that's the only way you can really know if something works or not. As others have pointed out, having no physical description of your characters can theoretically work. As ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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Helping my beta readers help me My beta readers are family and friends - people who read a lot, but do not write. They are people whose opinion I trust, and who are genuinely trying to be helpful. (And I haven't found a writing group.) Here's the problem: sometimes the critique I get is: "I understand the character's motivations, ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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Too eloquent characters Here's a critique I've received more than once: "your character talks like a character from a book. He's too eloquent, nobody really talks like that, unless they grew up in a library." Now, to some extent, characters not talking like we really do is an acceptable break from reality: interjections, p... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How do I write "Show, Don't Tell" as a person with Asperger Syndrome? You say other's emotions are clear to you when people are giving verbal hints about them - when they're saying "this is fascinating" etc. This is one tool you could use in your writing. You can hint at emotions through the way a character talks. Commas and repetitions stress what is important; a cha... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: Should I "tell" my exposition or give it through dialogue? The thing that is often unnatural about giving exposition in dialogue is that both people having the dialogue should already be aware of what is being said. To solve that problem, you can either introduce a character who would reasonably not be aware of the situation, or you can tell that exposition ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How to make a setting relevant? @DPT's answer is great (+1), but let me add one more element to it: it's not enough that your characters interact with the setting. There needs to be a reason why your characters are there in the first place, the setting needs to affect the story. Your characters are in an office. Why? How does it a... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How do you build a story from a world? Think of the real world, the one in which we live. How do you grow a story out of it? The answer is there's plenty of stories, it's just a question of what interests you, what moves you, what kind of story you wish to tell. Your secondary world is the same. There are myriads of stories that can be ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: I wrote a scene that the majority of my readers loved. How do I get back to that place while writing my new book? You write. If what comes under your fingers is not great, if you're not satisfied, you rewrite. It's easier to find what needs to be improved once you have something, than finding the perfect scene while staring at a blank page. You have no "inspiration"? Write anyway. Inspiration will come. I would... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How can I add depth to my story or how do I determine if my story already has depth? @MatthewDave suggests asking yourself what your story is about. I would go farther: ask yourself what is the meaning of your story , what it is you're trying to say. If you're saying nothing at all, then no, your story doesn't have much depth. And at this point, it's too late to change that - you'd ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: Adding depth to two-dimensional heroes from myths You are mistaken in your basic assumption regarding what gives characters depth. If heroic Beowulf is in your story secretly a bad guy, that in and of itself doesn't make him three-dimensional. That just makes him a two-dimensional bad guy instead of a two-dimensional good guy. What makes a characte... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How to make the POV character sit on the sidelines without the reader getting bored You have multiple options. - You can, as @Amadeus says, rewrite, so your character can be in the battle. - You can have somebody recount the battle to your character after the fact, with your character reflecting bitterly on not having been there, and having been unable to affect things. In this cas... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How to detach yourself from a character you're going to kill? You don't detach yourself from the character. On the contrary - you let yourself feel the pain of her death, experience the loss, and you pour all of that onto the page. When a character dies, it should matter. It should be a punch in the gut for your audience. That can only be achieved if you care ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How to create a plot given theme and settings? You have a world with a Problem. That's your setting. Why does the Problem matter to the character? How does it affect him? Your character must interact with the Problem - that's what the story is. It follows that the more intimately the character is familiar with the Problem, the more he is affected... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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20 Minutes into the Future - problem with setting the period I have just finished a short story, set in what is known as 20 Minutes into the Future - a time frame that's only a little into the future from our own. There is a change from modern times, but it is sociological rather than technological. I opened with the element that's different, set it and the p... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: In a professional email you need to quote something from a business document. How do you write this? According to APA 6th Edition Citation Style, > When a work’s author is designated as “Anonymous,” cite in text the word Anonymous followed by a comma and the date: (Anonymous, 2010) If, instead, you're citing a newspaper article, journal article, or website with no author, give the article title an... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Stereotypical names In every country, some names are particularly common: 'John' in the UK, 'Juan' in Spain, 'Ivan' in Russia. Those names are common almost to the point of being stereotypical (consider 'John Doe'). If I have no more than one or two characters from a particular place, is it bad form to use those extrem... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Famous mistranslations - correct them? Often enough works of literature, particularly old classics, receive renewed translations. Sometimes, the older translation might contain mistakes. And sometimes, the work being an old classic, the mistakes have become famous as part of the work of literature. For example, English-speakers know that... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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When does a phrase change from "quote" to "expression coined by"? "The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry" comes from Robert Burns's To a Mouse. It is a commonly used expression, though the "mice and men" part is often omitted nowadays. In fact, not every person using the expression would be aware of its provenance. "The burned hand teaches best" comes fr... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Pre-modern battle - command it, or fight in it? If I were to describe Waterloo from Napoleon's point of view, it would be very different from that same battle from the point of view of a soldier, or even a cavalry lieutenant in the front ranks. Napoleon's fate is decided on that battlefield as much as the lieutenant's. Napoleon has a better unders... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Future battlegrounds What makes a battle scene tense and visceral is the immediate danger and the fast-paced action and reaction. For that, the human soldier needs to be on the battlefield, in the action. Here's the problem though: as technology advances, we move soldiers away from the battlefield, if we can. As an exam... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Does success imply validation and agreement? In 1984, Big Brother succeeds. Big Brother is a very successful bully. In the end, one even learns to love Big Brother. There is no validation and agreement in 1984. There is a terrible warning. This too is a path you can choose to take with your story. How would you do that? By keeping sympathy f... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How much character growth crosses the line into breaking the character Here's something important: if I am invested in a character, I would feel cheated if that character suddenly changes off-screen, and I am supposed to just accept that change as their new "characteristic". It's not enough that one could theoretically get there from here, as @Jedediah states. I would w... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Using substitution ciphers to generate new alphabets in a novel If you wish to depict encrypted text, use an actual encryption. Something that could be decrypted by hand, but would require some effort. That would be a fun for a puzzle-minded reader to figure out, an easter-egg if you wish. For the reader who is not a puzzle lover, you should (eventually) provide ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Characterizing a sentient robot: sensory data As @Amadeus points out, a robot programmed to interact with humans would know what range of colours "yellow" corresponds to, and would use "yellow" when interacting with humans. Interacting with other robots, a robot might find it more comfortable to use the specific wavelength, or some similar repre... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Turning away from the 3-act structure - what guides my pacing now? Not all stories follow a 3-act structure. As an example, Les Misérables is rather episodic in its nature: first there's the story of Bishop Myriel and how he meets Jean Valjean, then there's Fantine's story, then Cosette's, then we have Marius who encounters now-adult Cosette, then there are multiple... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Introducing a character in the third act? If a character appears in the third act and helps solve a major problem the main characters have carried for the two previous acts, that character is sort of deus ex machina - something previously entirely unforeseen comes and solves the problem. If a character appears in the third act and makes new... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Are friendly writing contests a useful exercise? As I recall, Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Horace Smith, and whoever else their friends were, used to challenge each other to write things. Quite a few novels and poems came out of those friendly contests. A writing challenge forces you to step out of your comfort zone, stretch your creat... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What is the effect on the young reader when there is no "Happy Ending" in a story for children? King Matt the First is very explicitly written for seven-year-olds. It's about a seven-years-old prince, whose father dies, so he becomes king. He tries to be a good king, but there's a war, and he's defeated, and ends up being exiled. There's a sequel - in its end, he dies in a factory accident. I... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Non-trope happy ending? Easiest example where not all protagonists find "someone else" is The Lord of the Rings. Of the nine members of the Fellowship, Aragorn and Sam are the only ones who marry within the course of the novel. Merry and Pippin are mentioned in the appendixes to have found wives later, but that is not part ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Creating or identifying secondary protagonists Like @Rasdashan, I am a discovery writer. My characters take shape as I write. You might find that this approach works for you too. That said, since you wish to write about a group of characters, you might want to look into group dynamics, and various party structures. Here is my answer to a questio... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Showing mass murder in a kid's book You have two problems here: 1. Lots of good people dying, "on stage" - in front of the children 2. Good people killing other good people The first is dealt with very well in The Hobbit, for example. > Already behind [Thorin] among the goblin dead lay many men and many dwarves, and many a fair ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Mortal danger in mid-grade literature In a comment to my post here, Cyn mentions wishing to avoid implying that the characters might all die, because she's writing for a mid-grade audience. Which made me wonder. I remember reading The Hobbit when I was nine or ten - in the mid-grade range. There's danger there - the orcs, the dragon, t... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Best practice for academic writing: write and cite or write first? "Write and cite" is good practice that you should start getting accustomed to early on. The longer the piece you write, the more sources you would have to juggle. Now, imagine there are twenty articles you would be citing, four of them say something relevant to the point you're making in one single p... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What if your narrator’s profession is author and she wants to include her writing process/specific chapters as part of her story? It is not unusual for the main character, or the POV character (not necessarily the same thing) to be a writer. There's even a trope for this: Most Writers are Writers (tvtropes link). A famous example is Dr. Zhivago. Zhivago is an aspiring poet and novelist. Throughout the novel, we read excerpts f... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Symbolism of 18 Journeyers You've said it yourself: 18 = life. It follows that had there only been 17 travellers, they would not have come home alive. Preferably every child, but particularly the stowaway, must have a crucial role to play. Otherwise, they're not necessary, right? You could play more with the idea. Your 18 tra... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Writing in a Christian voice Growing up in Israel, I am surrounded by Jews. Interacting with Christian acquaintances, and reading literature written by religious Christians, there are a few things I noticed - things that stood out to me as not being what is to me "the norm". (This is not an exhaustive study. Those are broad gene... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What should tie a collection of short-stories together? In an interview that I can't find now, Neil Gaiman stated that the short stories in his latest collection Trigger Warning had one element tying them together: they were all the short stories he had written since the last collection. He said that when people came to him and talked about themes explore... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How can I make a non-linear timeline less confusing? Tolkien dealt with exactly the same situation in The Lord of the Rings, starting with the breaking of the Fellowship. For example, we have simultaneously Merry and Pippin being carried by orcs; Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli chasing same orcs; Frodo and Sam getting lost in the Emyn Muil. The way Tolkien... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Describing a chess game in a novel Your story must be perfectly readable and understandable by people who do not play chess, do not know the rules, and only know through pop-culture osmosis that there are pieces called 'rook', 'knight', etc. Write with that in mind. With that in mind, I probably wouldn't use chess notation at all. So... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How far I can write about a protagonist with a different ethnicity of me? Let's explore the proposition you're making here. You're saying "a white person cannot know what it's like to be black. Ergo, a white person should not write about black characters." So, white writers should exclude black people from their stories? That's rather racist, isn't it? The opposite of your... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How specific should I get when brainstorming with what-if exercise? Not a direct answer to "how specific", but a technique you might find useful not to get bogged down in details: instead of writing a list, make it a tree. In your example, "writer", "actor", "programmer" are all children of "talent". "Talent", on the other hand, is the only child node of "doesn't wa... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to write cleanly even if my character uses expletive language? Each usage has its place. #1 is most commonly used in such situations. Even if you're not writing for children, you don't necessarily want every bit of cursing. Sometimes telling that the character used a strong word is enough, or even more effective, than actually spelling out what exactly he said.... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Does it really serve a main character to give them one driving want? I think it's like this: a normal person wants a lot of things: a new car, a raise, sex, some peace and quiet... When something dramatic happens, a person suddenly realises what's really important in their life. It sort of crystallises, and everything else becomes less important. For example, if ther... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What points should a "Character Interview" method for character building hit? Expanding on what I said in a comment to @Amadeus's post, I don't like thinking of "talking" with my character as an interview. A character might not want to answer a journalist, an interrogator, even a doctor. But a character would open up to a friend. So, "a trusted friend" is how I position myself... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |