Activity for Evil Sparrow‭

Type	On...	Excerpt	Status	Date
Answer	—	A: Writing challenge #5: Relaxing The end of the school week came as a relief for Megan McAllister, and she was looking forward to going home and doing something fun. She lounged in the back of the car, staring up at the sky and trying to spot shapes in the clouds. The day had begun with such a promising start. They'd arrived at ... (more)	—	over 3 years ago
Question	—	Which parts of a character's plan should be revealed beforehand? Two characters (one is a PoV character) come up with a plan to break a third out of prison. They succeed, with only minor complications. If I describe too many details of their plan beforehand, it feels like I'm telling the same story twice. If I don't include enough, it looks like they're making ... (more)	—	over 3 years ago
Answer	—	A: Writing challenge #4: Cats and dogs (This is a sort of prequel to 2 stories I entered in last year's writing challenges.) Technical Difficulties 0 The ship streaked across the morning sky, spewing smoke. Inside, the pilot clawed at the controls, fighting to keep the ship on course. He could see the landing site – a baseball field... (more)	—	over 3 years ago
Answer	—	A: Writing challenge #3: Something new Carlos picked at his macaroni and cheese, trying not to look up at the picture on the wall. Grandma set down her fork and looked at him, frowning. "What's wrong? You liked that the last time you were here." That was last Christmas, when the only clowns in the room were the salt and pepper shake... (more)	—	almost 4 years ago
Answer	—	A: Writing Challenge #2: What the thunder said Some managers, Lucy thought, need to have their meeting privileges revoked. She fidgeted and looked at the clock in the corner of her screen: 5:34 PM. The Tuesday afternoon meeting had been scheduled to start at two and run for three hours, as always, and it had run over, as always. There were twe... (more)	—	almost 4 years ago
Question	—	How can I make a character sound condescending? In one chapter, the PoV character meets up with her sister. Her sister is supposed to be fairly stuck-up and thinks she's a complete lowlife, so she talks down to her the whole time. I have the PoV character mention her sister's condescending tone, but it feels heavy-handed to me. If I want to mak... (more)	—	almost 4 years ago
Answer	—	A: Writing challenge #1: The great outdoors! Brianna slouched in her seat, staring out the window, the worksheet on her desk forgotten. There were hundreds of things she could think of to do on a beautiful May afternoon, and none of them involved the circumference. Recess had been interrupted by a short but fierce thunderstorm, but now the sun ... (more)	—	almost 4 years ago
Question	—	Writing Challenge: Treasure! - Feb 23 2020 - Mar 22 2020 Welcome to the latest Writing Challenge! In line with the previous one, this includes a topic, a prompt, and also a challenge. - Topic The topic of this challenge is finding treasure. This might be about a dragon's hoard, winning the lottery (or an award), recovering a prized possession... (more)	—	about 4 years ago
Answer	—	A: Writing Challenge: A Long Way Home - Feb 1 2020 - Feb 22 2020 In the last two hours, Stan Woodward had learned to truly hate Christmas carols. Just before the crash he'd been punching the buttons on the radio, trying to find a station that was playing real music. Stan had never been a fan of carols to begin with – boring, sappy tunes with as much life and en... (more)	—	about 4 years ago
Question	—	How can I make a character sound uneducated? Some of my characters have little to no education, and I'm looking for ways to show that through their dialogue. (They're uneducated, but not necessarily stupid.) Here's what I've tried so far: 1. Grammar mistakes. These get obnoxious quickly, so I can't do this too often. 2. Low-level vocabul... (more)	—	about 4 years ago
Answer	—	A: Questionable Promotions - Writing Challenges The new challenge has been posted here. [1]: https://writing.codidact.com/questions/39420 (more)	—	over 4 years ago
Question	—	Writing Challenge: A Long Way Home - Feb 1 2020 - Feb 22 2020 Welcome to the resurrected (again) Writing Challenge! In line with previous ones, this includes a topic, a prompt, and also a challenge. - Topic The topic of this challenge is a difficult journey home. It could be about someone stuck in traffic, a pet lost in the woods, a traveler stran... (more)	—	over 4 years ago
Question	—	Questionable Promotions - Writing Challenges I notice we aren't getting a lot of new questions on here yet. Last summer we had a series of writing challenges in Meta, like this one: https://writing.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2127 I'd like to try to bring them back - hopefully, we can get more activity and some new questions this way. Wha... (more)	—	over 4 years ago
Question	—	In a dialogue, how can I hint that the characters aren't telling the whole truth? In one scene, I have a conversation between three characters: A, B and C. A's son and B are involved in something illegal. C isn't aware, and since A and B aren't entirely sure she can be trusted, they'd like to keep it that way. The scene is being described from C's PoV (3rd person). C is not us... (more)	—	over 4 years ago
Question	—	Bug - Unable to Import Content I'm having trouble trying to claim my content. If I go to "Edit Profile", click "Authenticate", and sign in to SE, I get: `redirecturi` is not under the registered domain for this application I get this error on both Chrome and Edge. Am I doing something wrong, or is this a bug? (more)	—	over 4 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can I hint that my character isn't real? Something about the character's physical appearance doesn't seem quite right. If I recall correctly, the hallucinations in A Beautiful Mind never aged - that's how the MC was eventually able to tell that they weren't real people. You could do something similar, to show that the character is out of t... (more)	—	over 4 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do we end a description properly? The problem with your description doesn't seem to be the word count, but a lack of conflict. Sesquipedalias has the right idea - it feels like you've described something that isn't important to your story. You have a character waving goodbye and drinking his coffee - both ordinary, everyday actions.... (more)	—	over 4 years ago
Answer	—	A: Lost my ‘magic’ concerning characters In my experience, characters generally feel flat and unnatural when they're there to fill a role in the story, instead of being allowed to act like themselves. Meaning, the events are written the way the author wants rather than the way the character wants. The result is a character who is more pupp... (more)	—	over 4 years ago
Question	—	Ending a line of dialogue with "?!": Allowed or obnoxious? A dialogue of mine contains the following sentence: > "You fired all three of them?!" Trouble is, I'm not sure I've ever seen a novel that used a question mark and an exclamation point together - it's something I normally see in comic strips and the like. Is using the two punctuation marks together... (more)	—	over 4 years ago
Question	—	Ambiguous sentences: How to tell when they need fixing? A story of mine has the following sentence: > Alyssa was possessed by a sudden, fierce urge to snatch the teacup out of her sister's hand and dump the contents into her perfectly arranged hair. On further reflection, I realized this sentence is ambiguous: I never said which of the two gets the tea ... (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Are there advantages in writing by hand over typing out a story? In my experience, writing by hand is better for brainstorming and first drafts, and typing is better for editing later drafts. I usually work out new ideas on paper - I tend to have a lot of questions for myself right at the beginning. On paper, it's easy to quick scribble a question or note next to... (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Can we dialoguify sounds? I wouldn't recommend this. Anything that appears in quotation marks is meant to be taken literally. When I first read your example, my first thought was that Celine was talking - and actually saying the words "Bang, bang, bang, pow." This approach is likely to confuse the reader. A common alternati... (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do we follow up a description within a descriptive text with another description? If you're trying to have it feel less like the second description is interrupting the first, I'd recommend pulling out the description of B (the classroom) and making its own paragraph, establishing the setting for A (the old man) before going on to describe him. So your example could be written lik... (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Averting Real Women Don’t Wear Dresses "Strong" isn't always about having the biggest muscles, and not all conflicts are physical. (Likewise, giving a male character the ability to lift heavy objects doesn't mean he can't be whiny and annoying.) There are plenty of traits you can use to make your character effective: the creativity and i... (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Should I use the terms "people" "person" "man" and "woman" in fantasy setting? How does your fantasy race view humans? 1. They don't like us. In their legends, we're stupid, brutish and disgusting - basically, "human" is their version of "troll". In this case, I'd recommend coming up with new words. It would seem strange to make them use words that mean "troll", "male troll", ... (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Question	—	Is a sequel allowed to start before the end of the first book? I'm writing 2 stories simultaneously. The first one spans 17 years. The second picks up where the first left off... but only about 25% of the way in. The sequel seems to work best if I introduce the new characters about 5 years before the end of book 1, but most of the characters don't fit into the ... (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to write a nice frame challenge? It helps to remember that people are here looking for advice, not orders. Also to remember that what works for you may not work for someone else. I'd recommend wording your answers along the lines of "Have you considered X?" or "Here's something author X did, you could try that" and less along the l... (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do you show, through your narration, a hard and uncaring world? +1 to Ash, and I'd like to add another feature: lack of healthy life. If you really want to show that an environment is hostile, show that nothing pleasant can thrive there. Here are some suggestions for describing a city. Plants: No flowers (not even in window boxes). Any trees they might have pla... (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Question	—	I have a dialogue that I can't write directly. What would be a good alternative? My attempt at the current writing challenge features a flock of sparrows. Since the actual "dialogue" between two sparrows would sound like a bunch of cheeping, I need another way to show what they're saying. Here are the options I've considered so far: 1. Normal quotation marks. (Example: "This c... (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Adding depth to two-dimensional heroes from myths (Warning: I haven't actually read Beowulf.) Option #3 sounds like your strongest choice. Start by accepting the myth as fact: leave all his initial deeds as they are, and assume he acted in character then. Think about how his deeds might have changed him. The "boredom" angle is one possibility. Her... (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Question	—	Writing slurred speech One of my characters gets drunk and accidentally kills another. He has a couple of lines where he needs to sound obnoxiously, falling-down drunk. Is there a good way to accomplish this? What sounds should he have trouble pronouncing, and what letters should I replace (like s -\> sh)? (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Question	—	Character had a different name in the past. Which name should I use in a flashback? One of my characters has a flashback to when he was 5 years old. At the time, he didn't have a name (he goes by a physical description instead). What's the correct way to refer to him in this flashback: by the "name" he had then, or by the name he has now? The PoV is third-person limited. (more)	—	almost 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is there something "wrong" with my writing? How do I improve it? What strikes me is the lack of detail. I'm having trouble picturing the scene with what's given. There's more to a scene than just action. A character who's in danger shouldn't notice much besides the threat - you have the right idea there. But even then, there are other details he should notice - b... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can I make names more distinctive without making them longer? Using more compound sounds is a good start. Part of your problem comes from the syllables you're using - most of them are only 1 or 2 letters. The longest of your sample names is all of 5 letters - there's not a lot of room for variety when all the names are 3 or 4 letters long. I recommend adding m... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Can the prologue be the backstory of your main character? Prologues are something that need to be handled carefully - otherwise, you may wind up giving too much information about a character/world that the reader doesn't care about yet. If you have a lot of backstory and you feel like it's slowing down the plot later on, there's another approach you can tr... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Question	—	Correct punctuation for showing a character's confusion I'm trying to show that the narration (third person limited) is being interrupted by the character's thought process, and I'm not sure what punctuation is best for this situation. So far, I've tried two approaches: dashes and parentheses. I'm not a huge fan of either. Is there a better way? Alternat... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Elongated vowel sounds I've seen dashes used for this ("Ye-s"), but I wouldn't really recommend it. For readability, using repeated vowels sounds like the better, safer option. There's no need for the reader to guess what the repeated vowel means (was the word interrupted, or was the vowel elongated?) and you have the opti... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Which techniques maintain reader interest when the POV is a spectator? (Sports story as sidequest?) "Maybe the answer is to go back and seed that these games, when they happen, are important?" This sounds like your strongest option - make the game itself a source of conflict. Give your PoV character a reason to be on the edge of her seat, agonizing about what's happening on the field. Here's a cou... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to keep a dark protagonist who wants to keep his humanity dark? What's in your MC's past, and what's driving him now? Your MC is a professional assassin - a skilled murderer. Where did he learn his skills? How did he come to be in a position where people pay him to kill? He has a violent background - but he's not just some street thug. Maybe he used to be a sol... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Changing the meaning of well-established symbols Can you completely replace the meaning in the reader's mind? Probably not - it's pretty similar to trying to change the definition of a word. What might be easier is the change the symbol's meaning for your PoV characters. Try showing the change from their perspectives. Add some event that makes the... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Question	—	Tiptoe or tiphoof? Adjusting words to better fit fantasy races English is a language invented by humans, for humans. Which means some words don't fit well when you're writing about characters who aren't human. For example: Suppose I write " The demon tiptoed across the room." My inner nitpicker complains that demons don't have toes. But if I try to replace "ti... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Stereotypical names It depends on what sort of story you want to write. If you want your character to stand out (superhero, famous outlaw, rebel leader, etc.) it's probably better to pick a name that stands out. If you're trying to show that this is an ordinary person, living an ordinary life, then using something mor... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Indicating multiple different modes of speech (fantasy language or telepathy) I agree that the right-justified text blocks are ugly as heck. I'd recommend italics for non-English and a non-quotation punctuation mark for telepathic dialogue. Mostly it's a matter of deciding what standard looks best for you and making sure the reader understands. As an example, here's what mine... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Does the reader need to like the PoV character? An example of an interesting story with an unlikeable/unsympathetic POV character is The Stranger, by Albert Camus. The POV character (Meursault) is fairly detached from the action - there's no emotion there. There's nothing for the reader to relate to. He just bounces from one situation to another, ... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to balance the agendas of co protagonists that periodically conflict? There's a third issue that affects both of them, something so serious that both of them need to set aside their own agendas and team up to deal with it. This gives them a chance to know each other better - each learns how the other thinks, and gets a better understanding of the other's motivations. ... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Symbolism of 18 Journeyers How difficult/dangerous is their quest? You can have the 18 travelers manage to escape from dangerous situations unhurt time and time again, and generally keep having miraculously good luck. Similarly, if there's a situation where the 18 aren't all together (suppose a couple of them wander off sights... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do we distinguish someone talking to another person via telepathy rather than via vocal means? It helps if you use something else instead of quotation marks for the telepathic dialogue. For example: `` Parentheses and italics can do the job as well. (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Question	—	How can I make a non-linear timeline less confusing? My story is broken into 8 sections. Sections 1 and 2 take place simultaneously, in two different worlds. The other 6 continue in a linear fashion (switching back & forth between the two worlds as needed). Right now it's not particularly obvious that 1 and 2 are happening at the same time. There's on... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to answer questions about my characters? "She needs to accept that people need independence" - that includes her. Right now whatever wealth, power and prestige she has comes from other people. But is she satisfied with that, or does she secretly long to become a power in her own right? Her lie is that she's content to just support her husb... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Including disabled characters without "inspiration porn" Show us she's capable, not someone to be pitied. If she's blind, she would have to learn how to better use her remaining senses. So when someone wonders "How hard can it be to rob a little old blind lady"? She can hear him creeping around just fine, and she's more than capable of throwing a lightning... (more)	—	about 5 years ago

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