Posts by Galastel
The world isn't all black and white - it's grey and gray. There are arguments to be made for dictatorship. Consider, at the very least, the famous joke "a camel is a horse designed by a committee."...
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 ...
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 "positr...
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...
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...
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...
There are multiple hints of dictatorial times within the English language. For example, have you noticed how farm animals have Anglo-Saxon names (calf, cow, lamb, pig), whereas meat derived from th...
You might find it helpful to look at the Torture Porn trope, to have a clearer idea of what to avoid. A work would be called "torture porn" when it appears to seek to disgust the reader/viewer whil...
First thing you would need to decide is what you actually want to do with that sequel. Do you intend to write something that is basically "more of the same"? "More of the same", but more modern? Or...
To the best of my understanding, the main problem with the zombie genre is that it positions decay-disease-disability as non-human evil to be eradicated, and as a threat to humankind. (I don't nece...
@Amadeus mentions duels. A crucial fact to the understanding of duelling, mostly ignored in the modern media: it was the seconds' task to attempt reconciliation. So, in fact, asking someone to a du...
You're looking at "uniqueness" the wrong way, I think. Look, for example, at The Lord of the Rings: Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin are all hobbits. They come from the same place, they share the same ...
@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. ...
Is it alienating to readers who are white and straight to be put into the shoes of someone who is drastically dissimilar to them? Is it alienating for a modern American to read a story about m...
Surely there's more to you than "mental illness guy"? Consider what other parts of yourself you could project onto a character. A hobby of yours can be your character's main occupation. A childhood...
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 manan...
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...
It is not uncommon for fictional works to start with quotes from real or fictional personages. Dune, in particular, makes heavy use of this tool, starting every chapter with excerpts from fictional...
There are many ways you can go with a series after the Big Bad is defeated. Was that in fact the Big Bad? Or were they in fact a servant of an Even Bigger Bad? Perhaps they were, in some way, a v...
Sir Terry Pratchett had several characters who, like Jack Sparrow, were used sparingly in the stories of others, but had a strong presence both in terms of their impact on the story, and in terms o...
As others have mentioned, writing a prologue from a different POV than the rest of the story is common enough. The part I'm not sure about is writing the prologue in first person, while the rest of...
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...
When you're writing a story, you know all the clues and all the connections. Since you know them already, they might well seem obvious to you. Are they as obvious to the reader? A good way to fin...
