Activity for Liquid
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answer | — |
A: POV - 3rd Person Rules and Exceptions? Your first example is not a straight-forward, out of the book example of breaking a POV. Your character may as well suspect that other people have a bad opinion on him. He might have overheard something, he might have deducted it from how people behave around him. Of course, if it's an important plo... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to write Arabic in dialogue for an English piece? I'd use the phonetic spelling, unless you're planning to publish in a country where both Arabic and English are commonplace. The reason is that it's easier for someone used to the latin alphabeth, like english readers, to read and recognize very unfamiliar words such "alaistirkha". Your audience won... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
What are some good historical sources for writing medieval battles? This question popped into my mind after criticizing the strategic choices in a recent episode of a famous fantasy television show (coffs). A lot of genre fiction (mostly fantasy, even if we may cast historical-fiction into the pot) deals with battles, war and similar events. However, the emotional i... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Having multiple epilogues According to Wikipedia, > An epilogue is the final chapter at the end of a story that often serves to reveal the fates of the characters. Some epilogues may feature scenes only tangentially related to the subject of the story. They can be used to hint at a sequel or wrap up all the loose ends. They ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
When do you stop "pushing" a book? Let's suppose you have finished your novel, through all the appropriate stages of drafting and editing needed. You begin submitting the book to various agents and/or publishing companies, but none of your queries gets answers. I'm talking about a worst-case scenario, where you either get copypasted ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
In a series of books, what happens after the coming of age? I'm writing a novel focusing on a single character POV. For many aspects, it can be considered a coming of age story; along with the usual tropes of the hero's journey, my protagonist gradually learn something of the world she lives in, acquires more confidence, agency, and the respect of her peers. ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
The unknown and unexplained in science fiction Science fiction has been defined as a genre where the "incredible" elements are "recognizable as not-true, but also as not-unlike-true, not-flatly- (and in the current state of knowledge) impossible" (According to Darko Suvin, from Wikipedia link). This is often compared against fantasy, where magic... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Picking a theme as a discovery writer > However, if I just pick a random arbitrary theme by spinning the great wheel of themes, then I find myself struggling to develop it because there is nothing behind it. Then I fizzle out and abandon the project. In my experience (another discovery writer reporting in) the themes don't move the plot... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Writing technique resources I'll add to the already good answers: > effective ways to describe fear, doubt, exhaustion, love... There are a lot of writing guides out there, some more general, some more specific. Some bad, some good. I'll tell you about my experience with a book called "the Emotion-Thesaurus" that a friend gif... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
English words in a non-english sci-fi novel In the modern world, english is a well-estabilished technical and scientific language. Some terms have become so commonly used that they are accepted in my native tongue (words like "computer", "PC", "network" being examples). I'm currently writing a science fiction novel in my native language. I de... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Can I include diagrams in essays for complex topics? I think that in this case you may want to keep both ways open. Diagrams are usually allright in academic and technical contexts, but you mentioned this is a college assessment and your ability to write clearly is going to be graded. I would include the image for clarity, while describing the conten... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
The difference between dialogue marks Most authors use dialogue in writing, especially when writing fiction. Now, if I remember my first grade primary school correctly, dialogue can be directly separated from narration in a number of ways. Either quotation marks, > "Murder," she said. dashes, > -Murder,- she said. or angle brackets ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Fleshing out the character motivation from the plot I never used the snowflake method myself, even if I gave it a look sometime ago. The problem with your abstract and concrete goals is that one is the specialization of the other. After all "killing X because it did Y" is just a particular instance of "vengeance". So they are basically the same goal.... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Can a third-person narrator ask questions instead of the characters? In novels, when the PoV follows a particular character, is pretty common that we get to hear his/her thoughts. Sometimes, those thoughts take the form of questions that the character ask himself: > What does that mean? Jodie pondered. Of course another way to do this is to cut the internal dialogue... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Chapters of a Book and Story Structure of McKee As far as I remember about story structure and McKee, and as far as a quick search on google yielded, No. Acts are larger than chapters, in most books of medium lenght. Acts are actually a concept more closely related to theater plays and screenwriting, but still it can be applied to novel and to s... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Beyond letters and diaries—exercises to explore characters' personalities and motivation > I feel as though I'm out of options for exploring these characters in a more intimate fashion. It's not feasible to me that any of them would keep a diary or write letters. I don't want to write a train-of-thought for any of them as an exercise; because, that's essentially what the main body of wor... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Delivering sarcasm Sarcasm is tricky. You correctly state that the written word is a poor medium for sarcasm (and surely you can't put your retorts betwen tags, unless if you hope to become a meme on some obscure internet imageboard). Yet I'd argue that context can help you make clear sarcastic remarks, even when you ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: What makes a siege story/plot interesting? You have a lot to talk about, in theory. A city under siege could last for months, sometimes a year, without reinforcements (by the way, wikipedia has a nice list of sieges here, both real and fictional). So, sieges are relatively slow and can have relatively low action (compared to field battles). ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Is a stroke of luck acceptable after a series of unfavorable events? The protagonist sets out on a journey to reach a goal. But the further he gets into the story, the clearer he understands that the odds aren't in his favor. He experiences loss, frustration, anger, fatigue. He falls, rises again, and falls once more. When he seems to be running out of option, thought... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Future battlegrounds The horse is not dead yet. Consider tanks. They are a century old technology, so they've been around for a while. Yet they did not kick foot soldiers from the battlefields. There are tasks that tanks are incapable of doing, there are requirements that make the use of tanks unfeasible in certain situ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Will it be accepted, if there is no ''Main Character" stereotype? Adding to linksassin's good answer about having a cast of characters rather than a main, I want to point out what you said: > The author takes special care of them. Provides them wise thinking. Good luck. A charm. In some cases special powers too. Sometimes readers bind that character to themselves,... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Characterizing a sentient robot: inhuman PoV Following the previous question: - Characterizing a sentient robot: sensory data I'm writing a robot character with a particular PoV. In the previous question I wanted to talk about sensory data; here I would like to open a wider topic. I know that this risks going into opinion-based territory, bu... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Characterizing a sentient robot: sensory data I have a sentient robot in my novel. Truth to be told, I have many. Sentience is somewhat cheap to achieve, meaning that there are multiple artificial beings that can be considered sentient by our standards. I'm already making some differences and showing how he perceives the world through his set o... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
The three acts and their relative length Let's take for granted that the 3 acts structure is relevant and exists. This, of course, is an assumption. How the three acts relate with the length of the novel? In a standard book - let's say 50k words, by rule of thumb the first act should be somewhat less that one third, with the second and the... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Using substitution ciphers to generate new alphabets in a novel A substitution cipher is a method used in cryptography to encrypt the meaning of a text. In the most common form, a substitution cipher changes every letter in the target text with another, making it impossible to read without first decrypting it. For example, this sentence in bold is encrypted with... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Introducing a character in the third act? I'm well into the third act of my novel and I'm introducing a new character that will play a part in the ending and an even bigger part in the roughly sketched sequel I have in mind. Now, I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that you shouldn't introduce new characters so late, unless not if you haven... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Can disgust be a key component of horror? The feeling of disgust is often used in horrors, exspecially visual medias (where is arguably easier to shock the audience with great effect). Often horror stories revolve around one scary element (a villain; a monster; a disease) that carries along a lot of repulsive traits. The alien in Alien is s... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Are friendly writing contests a useful exercise? Yes, I know that - in theory - any exercise is a good exercise. Context : Lately I've been running a writing group were multiple creative-writing/reading enthusiasts meet. As a group activity, we've been issuing a number of writing contest. Writers are asked to write about a particular theme or foll... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
When is using a simile better than giving a literal description? > Definition of simile > > : a figure of speech comparing two unlike things that is often introduced by like or as (as in cheeks like roses) Similes are nice tools that every narrator has (even if I'd like to focus on creative-writing for this question). Yet, similes are far from being fail proof. ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
How can I write humor as character trait? I have a character that likes to make humor, puns and jokes. Humor should work here as a character trait; something really peculiar to this particular char. He says a lot of puns because he find them amusing on an intellectual level. Some people like riddles, some like puzzle games, and some others ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Does the reader need to like the PoV character? I have the feeling this is already been asked, but I can't seem to find it. Close the question if it comes out as duplicate. There's an issue with novels with a first-person narrator, or a third person limited narrator that doesn't switch point of view. Namely, the reader is stuck for all the novel ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Personal or impersonal in a technical resume In CVs or on Linkedin profiles there are often spaces dedicated to past experience. In those sections, one is supposed to describe what work he/she did and what skills he/she acquired on previous workplaces/projects. In this context, is it better to describe the experience in a personal or imperson... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Do I need to convey a moral for each of my blog posts? You can try to add a "what I learned" sentence to the end of your blog posts, when there is something interesting to say, if your aim is to give "morals" to the readers. But overall, no: you don't need to convey a moral. Clearly stated morals are actually fine for a small subset of written media (e... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
How to include external references when writing internal documentation? In the IT industry, we often write a lot of technical documentation meant for internal use only. Those documents are often stored in an internal wiki and accessed when the need arises. The content of the documents is not relevant here; the only relevant fact is that in the IT field you are not suppo... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
What should tie a collection of short-stories together? Short-stories are a nice format to write. If you have been an aspiring writer for at least one year, it's quite probabile that you've got at least three short stories drafted out, sitting in some drawer or some hidden folder on your computer. Let's imagine now that you want to publish those stories,... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to shorten a prologue? I'm going to make two points: Don't be afraid to be more concise in your writing: There is a common misconception between us writers that we could sum up as: the audience is kind of dumb, and I need to spell things out for them (I'm exaggerating on purpose, but bear with me). This is, of course, a ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Naming Characters after Friends/Family From a literary standpoint, having to change a character name is kind of an hard choice to make. Names, rare or common as they may be, tend to stick to the character. You have gotten used to "Bob Snow", any other thing will seem downright strange. > As testimonied by Taserface in Guardians of the G... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Quote with attribution, but without saying that I'm quoting Assuming it's an academic paper, it's perfectly fine to just add the number to the quote. The number will redirect the reader to the full source, presumably at the bottom of your page or in your bibliography section. You already "introduced" the author in the previous citation, no need to do it twic... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Are paired adjectives bad style? I have the habit of using paired adjectives in my writing: > - The noise from the engine lulled her with its slow and monotonous rythim ... > - ... the lights on the ceiling filled the room in a soft and warm hue ... > - ... his skin was smooth and thin , like paper ... The examples may be not 100%... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Will my book have a better chance at being successful if I include more gender diversity in it? I'm not sure that gender diversity directly makes you more marketable to a certain gender. You are already aware of certain points, so I'm gonna skip the very valuable advice "if it feels forced, don't do it" and the equally valuable "don't maim your plot for the sake of making it more marketable". ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Everyone is beautiful It's okay if your noble characters are so well mannered to avoid judging people bu their looks. Yet, this doesn't mean you can't describe the ugly bits. First of all, as you mentioned: > They would consider it beneath them to think of a person as "ugly". If they look down on someone, it's in the "o... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Criticizing long fiction. How is it different from short? > Is size alone the only difference in such approaches? My answer: It's not about size, it's about a sense of scale. Short pieces are like snacks; easily eaten and digested. A bad one will leave a bad aftertaste in your mouth; a good one will leave you wanting for more, or, if it's really good, ma... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Should an author include user-interactive sections in his website? Related questions: - Should an author have one website or two? - As an new author, how important is to have a personal website? - Pros and Cons: A blog to get feedback A possible duplicate of , even if I'd like the question to be more generic: - What should I include (and not include) on a book's... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
How many elements can you focus on during worldbuilding? Possibly related: - How can I get readers to accept more than 1 "buy" in worldbuilding? Worldbuilding is a tireless art; that's what our brother site Worldbuilding-SE is for, and why as a writer you can actually catch the infamous Worldbuilder's disease. A lot has been said on the topic. Brandon ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Writing as a second job A lot of people here aren't professional writers, but write in their own free time or for their own pleasure. It's not uncommon, though, wanting (or dreaming) to make "something more" out of it, whether that something more is getting published or getting some extra cash in one's wallet. This conside... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: What do you call a fact that doesn't match the settings? I'd go with inconsistency ; to be even more specific, I'd say the worldbuilding is not consistent or poor. I second J.G. in saying that you're interested in inconguities at large. (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to tag distinct options/entities without giving any an implicit priority or suggested order? I think you may be overthinking the issue. In technical writing when you name three entities with elements of a specific subset, the ordering of the specific subset doesn't come into play unless it is specifically stated. There are plenty of examples where the common "A,B,C", or "X,Y,Z" are used wit... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Is it okay for the final chapter to be a lot longer than all the other chapters? It's not a problem if only the final chapter does this. As Amadeus mentions, chapter length is a kind of unspoken pact with the readers. If your chapters are somewhat even around 2k words, most readers will expect another 2k words. Maybe coming into the final chapter they'll wonder, "hey, how is th... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Fictional races and fictional racism Possibly related questions: - Should I add racism in my book's world or have my world have no racism? - Is accurate human nature required for good writing, even in fantasy scenarios, or with fictional species? In fantasy, we've become accustomed to having a lot of different races; let's think abou... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
| Question | — |
Monsters of psychological horror According to Wikipedia, psychological horror is > Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror and psychological fiction that relies on mental, emotional and psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle readers, [...] and it often uses mystery elements and characters with unstable, unrelia... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
- ← Previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Next →