Activity for Secespitus
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answer | — |
A: Problems with picture alignment in Microsoft Word - which other DTP software can I use? It likely depends on the field you are in and the amount of work and money you want to put into learning a new tool if you have only used Microsoft Word so far for this kind of task. For example in the technical and scientific community you normally find a lot of fans of LaTex, which is free for any... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How many words do visual novels contain on average per hour of gameplay? Very short and incredibly rough estimate: 10.000 words are around 1 hour play time. After some research I've found that the answer is... even more difficult than I had first imagined... First of all some statistics that I have found about the visual novel Fate/Stay Night, one of the longest visual... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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How many words do visual novels contain on average per hour of gameplay? I've seen a few visual novels on Steam and Kickstarter that mentioned how many words they already contain and what they are planning for the final amount. The problem is: I have no idea how those numbers compare to other games. As I am currently doing some research about the creation process of visua... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Documenting story in a videogame A lot of this depends on what kind of game you are creating. For example there is software that is specifically designed to help you with non-linear story design. See my answer to the question " Writing Beta Any software for video game non-linear story design?" for more details, but basically you wil... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: In what order should I name characters? You are writing in the order that is important in that situation. There is no clear rule and you can vary from situation to situation. For example you could simply start with the first one to enter the room: > Bob was the first to get to the party. A few minutes later John appeared and both of them... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: 'The Chosen One' paradox It's not a paradox - it's a choice You, as the author and creator of your specific fictional world, have the choice to define which of these statements is true. There is no inherent reason to assume one or the other is true and that the other one is false. In fact, it's often used as an important pl... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: What software/techniques do people use to gather ideas? Use a wiki Many people are using a wiki when they are creating their worlds, as can be seen by this answer to the question What software is available for keeping and organising notes about your world? on WorldBuilding.SE. > The biggest one is MediaWiki (the power behind Wikipedia). MediaWiki can be... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: What do you do when your message could be dangerous? If you don't want people rioting in the streets you should show how people are rioting in the streets in your novel - and how that way utterly fails to achieve what the people wanted to achieve. Discourage the obvious, easy ways that you already see, the horrible and dangerous paths that people may ... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: How to make sure that my reader has not forgotten an incident or character which was described earlier and referenced much later in the writing? You don't have to rely solely on your readers memory - you can rely on your characters memory. Just have your characters or narrator repeat the most important parts and show how the former little, seemingly irrelevant, incident relates to the current dramatic scene. Your characters won't just accept... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Sending an email to follow up with the client about a project deadline Ask your manager This depends on lots of things, such as how long you've been waiting, how often you communicate with the client anyway, how clear the communication was that you can't proceed, how far away your client is/ whether the client is in a different timezone, your work culture, their work c... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Arousing Emotion in Readers The first step to arouse any kind of emotion in your reader is to make the character relatable. If your readers can't relate to your character it doesn't matter what you do to the character, your readers won't feel a thing. If your villain just entered the stage and is angry at someone without any cl... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Disposable Characters Your premise is flawed: the characters that are killed are not disposable in the sense that it doesn't matter whether they are killed or not. Quite often they are peoples favourites, which makes them perfect candidates to raise the stakes for the reader. By making it harder to anticipate what charac... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Mixing humour with horror in fiction The problem is that you are mixing two fundamentally different genres. If I want to read a funny story I am not in the mood for horror - I want jokes and the problem of not laughing out while on the bus. If I am reading horror I don't want all the suspense to be resolved by some joke that leaves me h... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Can you have too many story arcs running at the same time? There is no general rule. I am currently reading a book that has half a dozen named characters, sometimes close to each other or even in the same location, sometimes far away from each other with the occasional point-of-view of someone mostly unrelated. The author is doing a great job of making sure ... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Where do I start? Whatever feels right. You could also write the start of each chapter and slowly fill each one out. This way you start with the rough outline, then move to a roadmap with small steps, and then you just try to fill in the gaps. This allows you to have a better overview of the goal you are trying to acc... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Rewriting User Guides as Stories You are referencing rule books for RPGs, so I am going to base my answer on those as examples, because I know the fascination of reading those books without playing the corresponding games. There are a few reasons that make rulebooks interesting for me: - Artwork A lot of rulebooks for RPGs have ... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Can I plug a loophole in my magic rules without rewriting the whole novel? Religion, time and blackmailing Have your world feature a religion that forbids the use of certain kinds of magical practices that would use your loopholes. The in-universe explanation would be that the church or whatever institution you want feared that people were too powerful and therefore uncont... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Diversity conflicting with authenticity You can't. You have a cast of characters that will work for your story. Now you see that those characters are not as diverse as today's media makes you feel is necessary. So you want to change something about the cast that you already decided is good for your story. This is Tokenism. If the settin... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: What to do when my preview exceeds the requested submission length? A general guideline that is used for anything that has to do with "limits", no matter if it's about the amount of words allowed or the amount of pages allowed is that you can have +/- 10%. Everything within that range is most likely acceptable, especially when it's already a considerable length. We a... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How many points are sufficient for my essay? A very generic guideline that is often used is to have three arguments/aspects/... This is often structured in the form of a Five-Paragraph-Essay where you have one paragraph that you use to introduce the general topic of the essay, then three different paragraphs exploring each argument/aspect/posit... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to derive a first sentence from a story? As you have already stated the most important part is to have the finished story ready so that you really know what will happen - plans are great, but they never survive the first contact with a beta reader. Beta readers are an important aspect of finding out what fits your style. Especially because... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to write a PG13 Succubus character? Happiness You can choose to go a more traditional route of having a succubus as a sort of dream eater. Instead of wet dreams you could then just make the Succubus long for any kind of nice dream. An oversimplified example would be to have it eat the dreams of kids that they will win some contest. T... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to avoid writing irritating fan fictions? Depending on the forum you post your fanfiction you will get those comments no matter what you do. It's a sad fact, but there are many people out there who just want to make others feel miserable and growing a thick skin when posting on the internet is a skill that you might need. Other than that it... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to make side-characters look competent next to the chosen one? You need to think about your protagonists weaknesses – now! If your protagonist is simply above and beyond everything and everybody else it will get really, really boring. Your character needs some form of development, some things to strive for. Dave has to be better in something, and that something... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: What are the signs of accidental self insertion? You should make a list of the most important conflict points that your character will have to face throughout the book. It's important to be able to tell beforehand roughly which problems your character has to face and overcome - if there is nothing to overcome the character is too powerful and/or yo... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Any software for video game non-linear story design? articy:draft from Nevigo The software is specifically designed for writing in a software development environment. It has things like asset management so that you can manage all your characters with everything important you want to keep in mind about them in one place, the ability to write branching ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do you stop capitalizing the first two letters on Scrivener? This is not a feature that you have to turn on in Scrivener - it's a general setting you have to use in Mac and apps like Scrivener would have to use this setting From macworld.com: "How to fix typing two capitals in a row at a word’s start": > OS X does offer this setting system-wide as part of au... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to describe sound? If you are having problems with describing sound leave it to the imagination of your readers - just state what is causing the sound. If your characters can see or simply know that it's an oar hitting the water he can state for example how loud the sound of the oar hitting the water is or how the wat... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Describing something that doesn't exist Only describe the important stuff that will play a role later and gloss over everything else with very broad descriptions - readers prefer their own mental image if it's not relevant for the story. It's enough to use terms and phrases such as "futuristic", "very sleek" and "complete glass hood" to g... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Slow buildup vs sudden introduction The way you describe them they are not different You mention that one of the options is about building up small steps, hinting at the fact that he will unlock something. The other option is about having small steps, which are hard to see, that you are hinting at with him learning something. These ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Describe illustrated characters? Think about people who may use a screenreader (or like audiobooks) E-Books are very important and a lot of books are sold as hard-copies and as e-books alike. This allows people with a disability to "read" books, for example by using a screenreader. (That's also why it's important on sites like Stac... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Steps for writing a coherent letter ("Brief") in german? A German letter is not much different from a letter in any other language. The first thing to be aware of is whether it is in an official context or in a private context. For example if you are writing a letter of application where you don't know the person that might read your letter you might want... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Multiple ways to emphasise words There are a couple of ways that you could utilize, but changing the style often comes with problems. Some of these problems you have already encountered: - bold text is very nice to draw attention to something, but it's the kind of attention that draws the eyes of the reader across the whole page - ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Should I describe a person or a room first? Most of the time you will want to set the scene first In general you will want to describe whatever is stationary first so that the readers mind will be focused on whatever is supposed to be important in the following paragraphs. Most of the time you will want to describe the room first, then things... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Dead parents: something to avoid? You should show how they interact with your protagonist before to give the reader a feeling for the importance of these characters. Everyone knows that parents are important, but highlighting the bond between the character and his parents is important to make the reader feel the importance. Afterwar... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to confidently attract the other party to your side? > Together nothing can stop us. The problem with your intial idea is that you are saying that you are invincible for them. You are positioning yourself as a threat that can't be overcome, challenging them and at the same time insulting their abilities by mocking that they won't ever be able to be on... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to link two sentences? You should add a but after the comma > Anyone can use stock footage, but only you know how to use it correctly. Reading a but basically makes people ignore most of what has been said before and focus their attention on what is being said after the but. This way you can emphasize that while anyone c... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How can I write a review? You can't be one hundred percent sure that you don't have any mistakes in your writing. It's the same as with testing a program - you can find bugs and be certain that a version therefore has flaws, but there will almost always be things you just can't test, because you don't have the time to fully c... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Should creativity or eloquence in a technical document be removed during review? The goal of a technical documentation is to tell the reader what they need to know to continue working. They are not interested in reading a nice play on words or particularly interesting ways to phrase something. They are looking for a text that's easy to parse so that they can find what they are se... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do I find logical errors in my novel? Many people have a list of the most important things, like the overall story-arc and when to reveal which part of the plot so that it's easy to see and check these things. It's also a good idea to have a list for your characters with little notes about their characteristics from a physical and mental... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Working with hints/clues - Show vs Tell vs Nothing -ish You switched your style without having any reason to do so - just continue showing this via the characters thoughts It's the first time your characters encounters this reocurring thing. Just describe it like it's the first time. Maybe you just copy-paste the same passage that you used the first time... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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Where can I find resources about writing a litRPG book? Where can I find (preferably free) online resources, such as How-To-Write or styleguide articles and blogs, about writing a litRPG book? LitRPG, or Literary Role Playing Game, books combine elements that you would find in RPGs with science-fiction or fantasy. This means that the reader is made aware... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Horror story for a game - how to create dread? Play with visual cues Darkness is (an authors) friend when it comes to horror. Your reader/player can't see what's in front of them, which plays together with the \fear of the unknown already mentioned by @AlexandroChen. But it's more than that: the change of lighting will make your player prefer to... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: What editor can I use for world building that has a tree-like structure for my files? Based on the answers, specifically this answer to the question What software is available for keeping and organising notes about your world? on our sister site WorldBuilding.SE I would recommend checking out Realm Works as you say you have already tried different wiki solutions. Realm Works is desig... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Is it a bad idea to mix psychological horror with action? You should focus on one aspect and make it available in slightly augmented form in the other phases, too - or simply think about whether you really need those two parts The problem is that you are proposing two very different approaches. Rushing through everything with brute force can be great fun a... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to design a skill system for a litRPG book? It only prevents development if the earning of new experience stagnates. As in most RPG's the challenges your characters face should become harder and harder, which means that they will earn more experience with each higher-level encounter. If you would like some guidance as to how this could be do... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do I write in English if it's not native for me? This may depend on the specific context and personal preference. My experience regarding writing Blog articles comes mainly from a couple of fiction short stories, which is quite different from what you are doing. When writing fiction I write in English from the start because I don't intend do publi... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: What's next when it comes to poems? The next step would be to get a wider audience. Having people on Facebook and YouTube that read your stuff is already pretty good. Many people also have a Blog where they post their stuff. You could also have a look out for opportunities in your city - maybe there are local clubs for poets, similar t... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Software to draw plot structure charts I'll borrow an idea Memor-X pointed out to me in my question Are there tools that can aid an author in writing a branching storyline?: yEd It's a free tool that allows you to create flowcharts. I'm currently using it to create part of my D&D campaign. You can easily create for example a box/star/.... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: What are the stages between publishing a book on KDP and producing an audiobook? The article Should You Turn Your Book Into an Audiobook on Audible? by Matt Stone gives some insights into things that may be difficult when you want to turn your self-published book into a self-published audiobook. Here is some information that may be interesting for the scope of this question: > I... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |