Activity for Evil Sparrow
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
| Question | — |
How can I write an annoying character without annoying the reader? My story has a group of five refugees traveling across the kingdom. One of them is preachy and pretty much useless (unused to physical labor, trying to convert the heathens in the group). She's driving three of the others (including the MC) completely crazy. How can I show that she's turning the oth... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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