Activity for Galastel
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: How do I make my characters sound British? 'British' is a rather broad definition. What place in Britain? What time period? What class? Cockney sounds very different from Received Pronunciation, someone from Yorkshire would sound very different from someone from Newcastle. And don't forget that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are also pa... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to write a good MacGuffin? The MacGuffin is bound with the plot - it can't be any random thing not related in any way to the plot around it. Consider some examples: - The Hobbit: Thorin wants to find the Arkenstone, a particularly beautiful and precious jewel. He is not looking for a briefcase full of money - that wouldn't fi... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Writing as a hobby, where do you learn the basics and go further? There is no special secret technique to writing. No methodologies that you must follow. No "right way". The best ways to learn about writing are reading and writing. When you read, you are exposed both to ideas, and to how those ideas are expressed. Take note of how things are done, try to understan... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Should the name of a mythological creature be capitalized? Mythological creatures, or creatures you've invented, don't need to be capitalised, just like real-life animals. There's no grammatical difference between "a dog", "an orc", "a dragon" and "a manananggal". To cite a famous example, > In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. (J.R.R Tolkien, The... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Glossary in my book If you've ever studied a foreign language, you'd know how annoying it is to go check words in a dictionary; it breaks the flow of your reading, breaks the immersion, and sends you off to perform a "chore". A glossary is no different from a real dictionary in this regard - if your readers have to go s... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: What is a fiction story called, which is larger than a short story, but smaller than a novel? T here are multiple examples of novels that are little over 40,000 words. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is 46,118 words. Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - 46,333 words. Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front is 60,000 words. All are, rather obviously, novels. (Sour... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is it ok to temporarily break immersion in a tutorial for a game? Unless your game is for young children who might find reading harder, you want game instructions to appear in text rather than voice-over. The reason for this is that players often change key-bindings, and you'd want to dynamically change the instructions to match. Another consideration in favour o... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Explaining made up card game The question largely depends on whether the game and its particular rules are important to the story or not. Take, for example, Quidditch, from the Harry Potter series. The game constitutes a major story element in the first six books, and the key to a plot coupon in the seventh. So much story-time ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How should a big universe be introduced without being boring? You want to spend as little time as possible on "setup". Even one page of nothing but setup is too much. The reason for that is that the reader is not yet invested in your story. You'd be forcing a reader to read something akin to a fantasy-encyclopedia about something he has no reason to care for. ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to stylize notes/book-passages being read inside my story? What should be guiding you with formatting in creative writing is first and foremost clarity. If your intent is clear, easily understandable, doesn't require the reader to stop and wonder what's going on, that's good enough. Often more than one option of formatting exists. It is, however, very import... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Citing and typos I am holding a book (novel) which I wish to cite, and I believe it has a typo. I do not know whether the typo was a spelling mistake in the original manuscript, or introduced during print. Other editions of the book exist, but I do not know if the typo was corrected based on the original manuscript, ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How much should you "guide" your audience with questions? Sometimes when a strange thing happens in a story, for example a knife being found in a weird place, it can seem like a mistake by the writer. By highlighting the strangeness (whether by having the MC notice it, or by other tools) you are letting the reader know that this is not a mistake - this stra... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to create a likable and sympathetic character, even if they are a pervert? Two tropes you might want to look into are Chivalrous Pervert and Lovable Sex Maniac. The Chivalrous Pervert would be thinking about sex a lot. He would be unable to avert his gaze when that would have been the polite thing to do. He'd be constantly making passes at women. There'd be no doubt in any... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to combat "uneven writing density"? "Uneven writing density" is something that happens to me too, in my first draft. Then I go and add material where I've got only a skeleton, trim the excessive fat. One thing I found is, sometimes the "excess" from one part can be grafted onto a "skeletal" part. For example, I might have a small scen... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How do you make a scene "tasteful"? Nudity can be implied: a dress hitting the floor or a woman shown topless from the back. (Those are TV Tropes links, you've been warned.) If a character walks in on another undressed character (or two), camera might focus on his embarrassment, rather than on whoever is naked. Or the camera might pan ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How can a main character in a visual novel attract people of different personalities besides having a single trait each of them is attracted to? Surely you can imagine your protagonist possessing more than one character trait? He can be intelligent and kind and charmingly clumsy? Why then can't one girl be attracted to his wit, another - to his kindness, and a third - be charmed by his clumsiness? That's not so outlandish, is it? I like to th... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Choosing between two people in a romance? Let's broaden the question. You have two paths down which the plot can proceed. You find both equally appealing. How do you choose? Consider, then, this: - Which option offers more character growth, for the MC, and also possibly for other characters? - Which option offers more conflict? Conflict is ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to make a cool unmanly character You know what famous character is not a leader, lacks endurance and strength, is not particularly brave, and has a beardless round face? Bilbo. Or Frodo, for that matter. Or Sam: > 'I am sorry,' said Frodo. 'But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum.' (The Lord of the Rings, Book I,... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: My kid's first story What is "the right way"? Why do you consider it better than some other way to write a story? What do you consider "mistakes"? You can ask your son about why he has made certain stylistic choices or plot choices, but at the end of the day, those are his choices to make. You can criticise aspects of t... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How do you construct a thesis statement? Your thesis statement should express the main idea of your paper. So if you're discussing problems and solutions, the thesis statement should include both the problems and the solutions. The thesis statement should be specific. You've got that part down in your example: not "overpopulation may cause... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: What is the guide for writing essay for a people who cannot even write a paragraph? First, if English is not your mother tongue, you might find it easier to write the essay first in your mother tongue, and then translate it. That is the stage when you can take care of grammar etc. Maybe consider getting a friend to help you. Get your thoughts in order first, and deal with the langua... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How can I avoid a predictable plot? One way of going "off the rails" not yet mentioned here is to actually embrace the predictable plot, and then go past it. With your setup, of course the hero is going to defeat the monster. Let that happen by the end of act 1. What happens next? How does the village respond to not having a monster ca... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How much realism do I put into a war simulation story for Young Adults? At 16, the books our school recommended included 1984 and All Quiet on the Western Front. Crime and Punishment was part of the matriculation exam at 17. Also at 17, we were visiting Auschwitz. You don't get more horror than that. Which is to say, you can put any amount of horror in a novel for 16+ a... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: What are some conventions for creating a sense of urgency? Situations that create a sense of urgency can be condensed to a running timer : there's the total amount of time, there's the time still left, and there's what is expected to happen when time runs out. When writing a scene, you have to justify those elements. You can also play with them. Let me exp... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: In a first-person web novel, how to make the reader aware of a motivator the POV is unaware of? Since you're telling the story in first person, and the MC does something without understanding why, you could lampshade it. That is, after the fact, your MC could be commenting > I don't know why I did it Or something similar. What you're doing here, is you're acknowledging to the reader that the... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Portraying the Brutality of War > Should I touch on the aftermath of the battle, and the mass murder, rape, and enslavement of the army's 12,000 camp followers? Yes, you should. If this is something that happened in your world, you cannot just ignore it or gloss over it. This event is too big to be swept under the carpet. Consider... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to avoid basing an autistic character too much upon myself? Here's another perspective for you: I am working on a novel with many characters. In quite a few of them, there is a bit of me: I give them my values, and then make them argue which core value takes precedence, much as I debate with myself. I give one character the mistakes I made with my first boyf... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Do readers need to identify with fictional characters? Since everyone is saying "no", let me say "yes". To some extent. Even as a young teenager, I never had trouble to put myself in the shoes of d'Artagnan, or Jean Valjean, or El Cid, or Lancelot, or Frodo. There is no reason whatsoever why any one particular story shouldn't be about only men, or exclu... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Coining words - when and how? Writing an answer to another question, I stumbled upon a quote from The Hobbit: > Bilbo rushed along the passage, very angry, and altogether bewildered and bewuthered - this was the most awkward Wednesday he ever remembered. (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, chapter 1 - An Unexpected Party) 'Bewuthered'... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: What kind of writing style works for a game? Your description makes me think of Bioware games: the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises. Both explore multiple themes throughout each game, involve multiple cultures - the things you mention. Dragon Age in particular offers the player the opportunity to pick the culture they belong to. This diffe... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Noble styles and forms of address Style) is a manner of address, an honorific that comes with a noble title. For example, HM Elizabeth II is addressed "Your Majesty". In a fantasy setting that does not pretend to be Europe, I have chosen noble titles that are not "King", "Duke", "Earl", etc., but "Shah", "Vaspahr", "Sardar", etc. N... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to introduce a large amount of characters in the first chapter? The easiest solution is to split up the introduction. If it's possible at all, have the MC share a scene with one or two characters, then with two or three others, and so on until you've introduced them all. It can also be helpful to mention a character not present in the scene, before he is properly... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How best to prevent a protective response from overshadowing a heroic act? You're in a tricky situation here: there's been so much written about women needing protection, that responding negatively to it is almost a knee-jerk reaction, whether justified or not. One way you can address this is by acknowledging the problem. If you're telling the story from the man's POV, he ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How many times should I mention a character's name when the interactions are among the same sex? If you feel it is clear enough who is speaking, you can skip the attribution. For example, if two people are speaking, the reader would assume that they're taking turns, so you don't need to attribute every line to the person who said it. When a character addresses another by name, it also helps orie... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Protective, not patronising A character I'm writing about is a girl of 15, daughter of a nobleman, unable to walk due to having contracted Polio when she was 5. Being quite intelligent, she attracts some useful attention, and is offered a position at court. Her father is feeling very protective of her, and is not in favour of ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How should I handle writing a story where different portions of the narrative are told from the point of view of several different narrators? @FraEnrico talks about epistolary novels, and I agree with him - it does sound very much like what you're trying to do. What troubles me, however, is that usually one would have epistolary novels. You seem to be going for an epistolary short story. Ten characters are often a bit much for a short stor... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Changing perspectives An omniscient narrator can tell the whole story: sometimes the narrator's focus is on the MC, sometimes it's elsewhere. However, if the narrator only rarely strays away from sitting on the MC's shoulder, as it where, the effect could be a bit confusing. When it's done a lot throughout the course of ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Need advice about changing character's gender So, you are concerned about representing a minority in your story, because you do not belong to that minority. Following the same logic, men shouldn't write about women, WASP Americans shouldn't write about anyone of different religion or skin colour, and only people with disabilities should write ab... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Facial expressions as part of dialogue - getting rid of a verbal tic I noticed a verbal tic in my writing: > He looked surprised > > He looked confused > > He looked abashed Sometimes twice in a row: > The prince looked abashed. “I- I thought I was being polite,” he mumbled. > “You were. You chose your words and your compliments well. I looked at you, and I saw... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is it okay to use a lot of exclamation marks? It would be helpful if you could provide a sample of your writing. It is a bit hard to judge whether you're using too many exclamation marks, if we can't see how many you're using. :) As a general rule, your characters wouldn't be exclaiming all the time, would they? That's not how people talk in re... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: What to call a main character who changes names? There are many ways you can tackle this question. Some considerations would be how close your narration is to the MC, how the MC thinks of themselves, and how you want the reader to think of her. Let me give you some examples of how different authors treated the question, and you can see which approa... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to insert music lyrics on an book You do not make it clear whether your struggle is with the formatting of the lyrics (a question which @Cyn answers) or with structuring the scene, a question which I will attempt to tackle. The Lord of the Rings is chock-full of characters bursting into song at every opportunity. Tolkien sets up the... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Writing a coherent alt-history universe Let me challenge your premise. You say you're writing alternative history. Usually, alternative history has one point of divergence from real history, and the effects of this divergence are explored. The divergence can be a fantastical element, or it can just be that history took a different course. ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Using the grammatically correct way or the casual way to express the same idea in another language? Technically, not ending a sentence with a preposition is a rule that Latin-obsessed 17th-century nerds tried to impose on the English Language, as a part of a larger attempt to make English grammar work exactly the same as Latin grammar. This rule wasn't true for English grammar before the 17th centu... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How long should I mention an injured character’s pain? It's a fine balance you're trying to strike, between "unrealistically resistant to pain", and "we get it, get on with the story". I'd say, try to use the reminders that "character is in pain" to propel the story forwards , rather than have them stall everything. For example, in The Three Musketeers... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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How can I indicate that a particular relationship between two male characters is purely brotherly (Philia) rather than romantic (Eros)? One of the four forms of love Greek philosophy recognised, Philia is usually translated as "brotherly love". It is the love between true friends. It was considered a "higher form" of love than Eros) - the romantic, sexual love. Philia is what Kirk and Spock shared, for example. And the reason I chos... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Are reactive protagonists inherently a bad thing? I'd say the question of Active vs. Reactive hero is as much a question of how you present events, as of what is actually happening. Let me give you an example: Frodo, the main character of the wildly successful Lord of the Rings, can hardly be said to have actively chosen the quest of the Ring. His ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Authorship implications of presenting one’s manuscript as an older one in the prologue Pretending to "have found and edited an obscure manuscript" is quite a common literary device. A few other examples include Neil Gaiman's The Dream Hunters (Illustrated by Yoshitako Amano, part of the Sandman series) and William Goldman's The Princess Bride. You will note that in all examples, while... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How do i properly name a fictional species and describe it? Let's start with description: how to describe a living creature, without referencing other living creatures. What does it have - scales, tail, wings? How many limbs? On how many does it walk, if at all? Describe what is. For example, if I described a creature as "covered with soft brown fur, possessi... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: People like my book, starting halfway through Often books take a while to get into when they have a slow start, when not much is happening for the first part of the novel. However, you say that's not the case with you - you have plenty of action. I would therefore surmise that the problem is exactly the one you point out in your other question:... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |