Activity for celtschk‭

Type	On...	Excerpt	Status	Date
Answer	—	A: How to make the reader think that the *character's* logic is flawed instead of the author's? Usually the narrator knows about the thoughts. And the narrator will know that the thoughts are illogical, and thus can distance himself/herself from the thoughts. Of course that only works if the narrator isn't the villain in first-person. For example, you might write something like: > Dick th... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to demonstrate an evolution of magic without it seeming like it is improvised? It probably depends on the protagonists. Are they themselves magic users? Or even magic researchers? Is there actually a separate magic research (like the science research system in our world), or is magic research something that is done in magic guilds or magic schools that guard their knowledge fro... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: If I'm writing in US English, am I not allowed to use the metric system? Just saw your edit: > However, I'm using it simply just to convey to the reader "the car was going super fast" in a fancier way. In that case, I'd say use neither mph nor km/h. When you see a car going fast, or sitting in a car going fast, you are not making a speed measurement/looking at the speed... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to make the murder's identity less obvious, or make the obviousness not matter? There are two lines of thought that come to my mind: First, this is a first person narrative, so the narration happens at some time after all that happened. Now, having done such a horrible thing, he might be in a state of self-denial. Also, he's a horror story author, so he's used to imagine horrib... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What is the difference between Tension, Suspense and Mystery? Many good answers already, and I'm certainly not an expert on this, but yet I think I can still add something I haven't yet seen, or at least not recognized, in the other answers: Tension and suspense are emotional, while mystery is intellectual. I'd say tension is the basic reason why you read on.... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do I handle unintentional occurences of politically hot topics? One idea might be to think of his motivation and judgement. How does he know how to comfort her? Or that comforting her is the right thing in this situation? He must have some source of information of what would be the right thing to do. Normally I'd assume that comes from the social environment he ... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Tension built upon whether the main character will commit suicide or not. Problem: I'm using first person narrative I understand the question so that the story continues after the (postponed) death. Usually the reader knows how far into the story he is, so if there's too much story left, the reader will know, or at least expect, in advance that the first-person narrator will not die (unless it's a ghost story, as ... (more)	—	over 9 years ago
Answer	—	A: Does the following opening grip you? The first few sentences left me puzzled: > Of all the people who wanted to join the trip, Paola was the the last I expected would come. It surprised me. We barely knew each other at school, and I was pretty sure she wasn't interested in me. So the only reason why someone would join a trip with seve... (more)	—	over 9 years ago
Answer	—	A: Beginners can break rules too? I don't think this is in any way specific to writing. For example in physics, there are many wannabe-Einsteins who think that if you just claim the previous physicists were wrong and dream up your own theory, you can revolutionize physics. The result are crackpot theories, because unlike Einstein, th... (more)	—	over 9 years ago
Answer	—	A: My Hero is captured, now what? Another possibility that has not yet been mentioned is magic that works differently on humans and goblins. For example, the hero could have worn an amulet that offers some magic protection for humans, but has a very bad effect on any goblin wearing it. Of course the goblins would have stolen that amu... (more)	—	over 9 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is there a complete guideline for which tense to use? Well, the way I understand the tenses is as follows ( warning: this is my personal understanding, which might not be entirely correct, especially since I'm not a native English speaker; if anything is wrong, corrections are welcome): There is a "baseline" tense, past, present or future, which tells ... (more)	—	almost 10 years ago
Answer	—	A: Alien checking, by making questions One thing they could do is to ask questions about his home worlds with the intention to find inconsistencies that prove he's making things up. That would as a side effect also make the reader familiar with that home world. For example: > "So you are from a far-away planet? So where is this planet?"... (more)	—	almost 10 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to "defy" physics on a sci-fi? A hint where you could actually place the new elements: You could put them in the island of stability. If some people expect half-lifes of millions of years, it's not much of a stretch to also put some stable element there (although a very long half-life may be good enough; after all, uranium is inst... (more)	—	about 10 years ago
Answer	—	A: First Chapter for Free? If you publish the initial chapter, there's one thing you should make damn sure: That the readers are guaranteed to know up front that they are reading only a part of the story. Nothing puts you down more than if you expect to get the full story, and then detect that it's only a part, and you have to... (more)	—	almost 11 years ago
Answer	—	A: Basing fiction on personal life Considering that many of those threads from your life probably also involved other people, another pitfall is that someone else might recognize himself in your book and not like what you write about "him". If he's too recognizable, it might even get you in legal trouble. (more)	—	almost 11 years ago
Answer	—	A: Time measures in fantasy worlds One additional thought: Maybe the way you give time should depend on whether it is done by the narrator or by one of the protagonists. The narrator is telling the story to a present-day reader, so unless the narrator is supposed to be a person of that fantasy world, it would be natural if he tells... (more)	—	almost 11 years ago
Answer	—	A: Iambic pentameter: how do you use words with 'secondary stressed' syllables? I should warn that I'm actually not really qualified to answer this question since I neither know too much about a poetry nor am I even a native English speaker. However I'm answering anyway because I've made an observation which might adequately explain why the first version sounds fine and the seco... (more)	—	almost 11 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to format dialogue with an embedded long monologue One thing I would think about is: Are those things the other person says really unnecessary? They actually might give the reader valuable background information about what the other person already knows, and what that person considers normal (even though the reader may not) or extraordinatry (althoug... (more)	—	almost 11 years ago
Answer	—	A: What do you do if you enjoy writing, but have no ideas? Maybe you could write about the problem of coming up with ideas? Write a story about someone who has troubles coming up with ideas. Think about which solutions he might try, and how those solutions work or don't work. This has two effects: First, you already have one idea for a text, and it's someth... (more)	—	almost 11 years ago
Answer	—	A: What is the term for an accessible character that knows nothing? TVTropes calls such a character The Watson: > The Watson is the character whose job it is to ask the same questions the audience must be asking and let other characters explain what's going on. I don't know if it is desirable to have such a character (I'll let the more qualified people here answer ... (more)	—	almost 11 years ago

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