Posts by Galastel
Some countries have blasphemy laws. Those blasphemy laws might be "protecting" all recognised religions in the country, or only the state religion. In some countries, like Iran, those blasphemy law...
When trying to use here the same avatar I used to have on SE, I got the following error message: 413 Request Entity Too Large I can only assume that SE does an auto-resize, which we don't yet hav...
The "Ask!" button at the top of the page - when you're browsing Meta questions, you could easily think it means "Ask on Meta". Particularly if you're used to the SE format. But it doesn't - it mean...
Eighty words isn't an essay. It's a few sentences - a paragraph or two. Enough to express one short idea, but not to develop or explore it. You should therefore have a clear idea of what it is you...
Creative non-fiction recounts factually-accurate narratives in a literary style. It reads like a story, but it is in fact real history. It will be severely criticised for containing factual inaccur...
I am working on a novel inspired by the Shahnameh - a Persian epic poem by Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi. The Shahnameh (the title means "The Book of Kings") is structured as a series of interconnected tales...
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; Ara...
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 du...
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...
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 cha...
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 ou...
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. ...
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, whic...
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 Fantin...
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 hi...
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...
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'...
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 ...
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...
I think you misunderstand what Protagonist-Centred Morality is. It's not just that the narrative "encourages the audience to root for the protagonist despite the immoral and unethical actions". You...
In terms of building a character, what should guide you is what the story requires. If you need a mad scientist to make Frankenstein's monster, but the person you meet is nice and well-spoken, do y...
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 signi...
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 ...
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 w...
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 y...
