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56,153	I have a number of scenes in my story that involve two or more characters talking to each other about various issues, many of which wander into semi-philosophical discussion regarding some of the general themes of the story (e.g., the arguments you see between characters over life philosophies in manga/anime, some of the discussion of geopolitics in Game of Thrones, etc.) that also influence character development and relationships. I have an outline for the story so I know the general gist of what is said and what happens in broad strokes. E.g., in one scene I know that one character says something that makes another upset and storm off, which is necessary to set things up for the next scene where I need the character to be alone and angry in order for something plot-important to happen. I know what the character's mindset is going into the situation, I know the very, very general idea of what is said, and I know how the character's mindset changes as a result of the conversation. However, I am having a problem where I don't know what the character are specifically going to say to produce that result, or the arguments they are going to make. I have been working on this story idea for a decade now, and I remember what happened is I had some vague ideas about what specifically was said when I outlined the plot a decade ago, but since then I've forgotten what I intended to say (I've had issues with forgetting the dialogue of scenes while I was trying to write enough notes down in the moment to not forget them). It's the equivalent of knowing a scene summary but not the actual dialogue or points made. So now I have this issue in that I don't know how to get my characters to make the point they are trying to make in this scene. They have very distinct voices, but for some reason getting them to actually say it coherently is hard (specifically because these are scenes that establish who they are as characters). I'll use two scenes as examples, mostly because they involve the same characters (the male and female romantic leads of the story) and relate to the same issue. * The first is the initial "meet cute" between the two romantic leads. The guy is distraught over a tragic, traumatic event in his life (which I do know exactly what it is but am not detailing here for copyright reasons), whereas the girl sees a stranger being upset and talks to him, talking him through the crisis and convincing him to pick himself back up. This is supposed to be one of the key moments in the story to show the reader they have chemistry and an emotional connection. However due to the plot (a star-crossed lovers story), the two of them have this meeting without either ever realizing who the other is (and that the girl just helped someone who is technically her greatest enemy), which is part of the dramatic irony of the scene. * The second is a later scene between the two after their affiliations are revealed. The two are alone talking about something, the guy specifically feeling alone and unwanted, and the girl accidentally lets it slip that she feels the same way. This is the point at which the characters go from merely being interested in the other to actually having romantic feelings, and the point at which is becomes very apparent the two understand each other emotionally on some level. This leads into the characters gaining the motivation to take the actions necessary in the next scene. As can be seen, I have an idea of what happens in these scenes and how it influences character development, but I cannot easily articulate what the characters say or the specific arguments they make. I know how they see the world and how the conversations affect their character development. This is a big problem because in some cases, like the above, these are really important scenes used to establish chemistry between characters, and without it their relationship feels plot-mandated rather than developing naturally. This isn't only the case with romantic scenes, but it's where the lack thereof is felt most strongly. The closest I have been able to get is when I randomly have flashes of "oh, that would be an interesting point to make" and write it down, but ultimately that results in a rather incoherent argument that doesn't seem to have a point, and even worse does not build the emotional chemistry I am trying to create. Given this, what does one do when they know the general gist of how a scene or a philosophical argument is supposed to go but cannot easily articulate what the characters precisely say?	[ { "answer_id": 56154, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "Wait for Inspiration...\n-----------------------\n\n...but in the meanwhile, if you've been working on this project for a decade, you really need to do the slogging through to get the story written. I would place holders (a bit like in [this](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/43540/how-to-write-cleanly-even-if-my-character-uses-expletive-language) question) in the story with notes about what should go there, and keep moving on with the story. If you're anything like me, you'll be going along and all of a sudden the conversation will crystallize in your mind, and some plot element later in the story will fill in the missing pieces. This adds the benefit that the story-establishing scene will get tied directly into the later story. You'll realize that to make the rest of the story work, Jolr has to [inadvertent racial insult? inappropriate sexual comment?] to get the elements to all tie together.\n\nSo I'd suggest *[tell the OP some idea about having brackets with a mini outline in it]* or something like it. When editing, if you haven't gotten inspiration, you can search for brackets and find all the places you left place holders and fill them in later. At that point, the rest of the story is written and can't be forgotten. You can come up with the remaining content at your leisure without stopping you from finishing the book.\n\nThis does mean the editing process will be longer, because you'll have new material to insert. But editing is often a chance to redo scenes you aren't sure of. The other alternative to mini-outlines is to place poorly approximate discussions in these brackets and plan to edit them the same way. You MIGHT even be able to leave these in and get opinions/feedback from beta readers, but I find good beta readers to be so valuable I don't want to alienate them with crappy incomplete dialog. [CLEVER/INSPIRATIONAL ENDING LINE HERE]" }, { "answer_id": 56155, "author": "nick012000", "author_id": 28298, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/28298", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "### Think about the situation, the characters, and what the characters would say in that situation.\n\nSo, first, if you've been working on something for a decade, I think you're probably best off getting cracking putting words on pages. Sit down at your keyboard, and start typing! When you get to the scenes you're struggling with, consider the characters present, the situation they find themselves in, and then start writing the dialog that you'd imagine that they'd say in that situation. Basically, do the writing equivalent of [method acting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_acting)." }, { "answer_id": 56156, "author": "Deschele Schilder", "author_id": 51464, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51464", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "> \n> I've had issues with forgetting the dialogue of scenes while I was trying to write enough notes down in the moment to not forget them\n> \n> \n> \n\nThis means that you imagined the dialogue first in your head. If I could remember all the things that went on in my mind, I could write a book full! Many of the things I imagined I can't remember though. A true pity. I even imagined something for this answer, but I don't remember what it was, so right now, I am typing what I think without remembering a past thought. I think that's the best way to write, although a general outline is, generally, welcome." }, { "answer_id": 56159, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "### Forget the old dialog\n\nYou don't state explicitly if having forgotten the old dialog trips you up or not, but in case it does, you should accept that you've forgotten that dialog.\n\nBut even more, I've noticed that I'm able to tag some of my thoughts with a \"brilliant\" tag, only to later, when I tried it in reality it turned out that was just a tag I put on it. It wasn't brilliant at all...\n\nIt might not have been as brilliant as you thought, and that may be why you've forgotten it now...\n\n### The first draft of anything is crap\n\nYou're writing your first draft, right? It's supposed to be crap, have clunky sentences, and be glitchy.\n\nYou'll fix all that in editing.\n\nBut before you can edit, you need something to edit, and if a search for the perfect word or expression is preventing you from producing that first draft, you should try to settle for less than perfect for now...\n\nIt's not just that the first draft of anything is crap... in many cases, the only way to get the first draft of anything is to write crap.\n\n### Dig into characters\n\nWhen I get stuck like you, and I feel that I'm not even able to produce bad dialog, I usually dig deeper into my characters.\n\nI don't have extremely detailed descriptions of them (depending on how important they are or how troublesome) so there's always more to dig up about them.\n\nOr I take a pause or work on something else, especially something mundane and simple... It really gives the brain the pause it needs to be creative.\n\n### No plan survives the first contact with reality...\n\nHowever, you also have to accept that the plan you had from the start might not be feasible. I've found several times that my characters just won't do what I want them to do.\n\nThis is a tremendous gift because those people are telling you something about the story.\n\nYou might need to go back and add a reason for your characters to act the way you like in previous scenes.\n\nOr, you might have to ditch that plan and see where the story goes instead.\n\nI'm somewhere in between an outliner and pantser, so I'm ok with the story taking some detours.\n\nIn fact, I find I have to revise the outline or parts of it as the story progresses, but I always feel that I know more after having written the first act or half the book or even more, than I knew before I've even written a word of the text so those revisions never feel wrong (albeit sometimes stressful or depressing).\n\nIt seems to me that your inability to come up with the words might be because your characters are in a situation where there are no words to get what you want from them.\n\nSo you change the situation and/or its background, or you scrap that plan and come up with a new one." }, { "answer_id": 56163, "author": "Ethan Bolker", "author_id": 18269, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/18269", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Throw away idea too long for a comment. This is a common trope. I vaguely remember several versions of it in Nvikuspeara. Consider finding them, then writing your dialog to parallel what you read in tone, changing the content as appropriate for your plot." }, { "answer_id": 56166, "author": "M. A. Golding", "author_id": 37093, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37093", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "So your problem is sort of like deciding to write:\n\nZotn rushed into the room screaming \"The Sun is exploding! Everyone's doomed!\"\n\nor:\n\nZotn entered and that the Sun was exploding and would destroy all life soon.\n\nYou can write the conversation three possible ways:\n\n1. a longer scene exactly quoting everything the characters say in their discussion\n\nor:\n\n2. a shorter scene summarizing what the characters say\n\nor:\n\n3. an intermediate length scene where some statements are quoted exactly and some are summarized.\n\nSo version 2) might be written as, for example:\n\n\"Swoth argured in favor of free will while Jonif argued in favor of predestination. And though their arguments were brilliant, neighter convinced the other to change their position.\"\n\nVersion 1) would involve writing every line of dialog Swoth and Jonif said.\n\nAnd version 3) would consist of sections that were exact quotes as inversion 1) and otther sections which were summaries as in version 2)\n\nAnd the stronger and better the reasons you have for making the characters say what they say, the better any version or stylle you write the conversation in will be." }, { "answer_id": 56167, "author": "Stuart F", "author_id": 51114, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51114", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "You need to think about precisely where the characters are, what they've been doing just before they got there, what they're seeing or doing while there, and what they're going to do right afterwards. When two people meet they don't just chat about random things out of nowhere. They're probably focused on something trivial and immediate, whether it's getting somewhere, satisfying a basic need, or they're just waiting around and not doing anything at all. Maybe one of them sees something or does something while they're talking/in the same space. Maybe one of them has something the other wants - that's a good reason for them to interact (think of cliched/classic rom-com moments like people going for the same book or one dropping stuff and the other picking it up). Try and think why they would interact at all (and if your initial idea doesn't work, junk it and try another).\n\nThen once you have that, you need to write and rewrite until it seems natural. Don't worry too much about the exact words at first, think what they're saying and what they mean and what they want and feel with everything they say. If they are going to fall in love or make a connection, there must be some specific moment of connection, so you'll need to think of that, but it might well be something that crops up halfway through a conversation or doesn't relate much to what happened before. Conversations often go off on weird tangents or move to different topics, so try and let that happen. Often people don't listen to what the other person says. If they're misunderstanding or failing to recognise each other, then they could well be talking at cross purposes the whole time.\n\nOnce you have the character's short-term motivations sorted, you can think about the exact words they could say - although of course if the words and motivations come at the same time, as if you find the characters voice as you think about what they're doing, that's good too. But probably it will only come by writing and rewriting." } ]	2021/06/05	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56153", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118/" ]
56,168	Let's say you have multiple lines of events going on at once in a story. Call this a multithreaded plot. Is this common in stories? How would you represent this on paper before drafting?	[ { "answer_id": 56170, "author": "Alexander", "author_id": 22990, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/22990", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Multiple story lines are fairly common, and they are necessarily arising when multiple POV characters are separated for a significant length of time.\n\nI would personally differentiate between \"action threads\" and \"full storylines\".\n\nAn \"action thread\" is when different characters engage in separate action and not aware of the other's action mostly because of their fast-pacing environment, which limits their observation and communication. An example: in \"Star Wars\", episode IV climax, Luku Htyqalnef, Han Solo (and also Girth Vedur and Grand Moff Tarkin) each operate in his own \"thread\". Their limited awareness of the other's location, intention and capabilities was crucial for the overall plot.\n\nHowever, these \"threads\" did not create separate storylines, because they serve to make the overall plot converge, not diverge. They merge into one one plotline rather quickly. For separate storylines, we need greater separation of POV characters, with greater separation of their knowledge and experience. An example of that would be separation between Frodo and Sam from Qejpin and Merry near the end of \"Fellowship of the Ring\".\n\nYou probably need to answer a couple of questions:\n\n* Are your threads just threads, or full storylines?\n* Do you need to synchronize between those multiple threads?" }, { "answer_id": 56204, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Multiple storylines exists in many texts and could possibly be used in most types of stories. The only place where they probably can't happen that easily would be in a first-person narrative.\n\nMultiple storylines can be represented in many different ways. There are two main goals you want to achieve by these representations.\n\n1. Show and verify the cohesiveness and logical flow of events of each storyline in isolation.\n2. Show and verify the cohesiveness and logical flow of events of the storylines in combination (the complete story).\n\n(1) can be done with any form of list or diagram that shows events in chronological order.\n\nI most often represent (2) as either a table or as a [swimlane diagram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swim_lane).\n\nThe table would have one column per storyline and one row per time unit (hour, day, week, whatever granularity your story requires). Events on the same row but in different columns would then be chronologically simultaneous.\n\nTables and swimlane diagrams can, of course, do (1) as well, but the more storylines (or subplots) you have, the more events in the story, the higher the need for seeing each storyline in isolation.\n\nIf your story is not chronological you'll also want to view the events in \"book order\" and chronological order. And verify that they work in both cases.\n\nIf you need them on paper I guess you could print them, however. If you want to go the analog path, rather get some form of corkboard, create the swimlanes with yarn or something, and use index cards.\n\nIf paper is not a requirement, you could use Scrivener or other similar programs to represent the scenes in a corkboard view where they can be arranged by \"label\" as swimlanes ([see this video on how to do that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5kGeZPGUpM)).\n\nTables could be created in Word using horizontal orientation and a smaller font (but a bigger screen...)" } ]	2021/06/07	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56168", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25421/" ]
56,172	I haven’t supplied much description of my main character, mainly because it didn’t come up naturally. Her parents are described, so you can get a basic idea, fair skin, light eyes—but I never list any of her physical traits directly. But later, about six chapters in, another character mentions that she has red hair. Will this disrupt the mental image that readers have already formed of her? Should I mention it earlier, or not at all?	[ { "answer_id": 56173, "author": "signedav", "author_id": 49984, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/49984", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "Actually, a character usually gets by with very little physical description. If it's not necessary for the plot, I wouldn't mention the red hair at all, so that you don't confuse the reader unnecessarily and ruin his own imagination." }, { "answer_id": 56175, "author": "user2352714", "author_id": 43118, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Do it early, if at all. People usually form their impressions of a character based on the first time they see them enter the story, and if you don't describe them there the image won't stick in their mind.\n\n> \n> But later, about six chapters in, another character mentions that she has red hair. Will this disrupt the mental image that readers have already formed of her? Should I mention it earlier, or not at all?\n> \n> \n> \n\nYes, you must mention it earlier than this, because this is the point where it become plot-relevant. Much like a mystery, all the pertinent information must be established beforehand to make a plot development seem natural rather than shoehorned in. I.e., if the character has red hair, but for the first six chapters the reader assumed she had black hair, then readers will be completely lost when you mention how the character's red hair is important.\n\nThis is even worse for physical traits than mental ones, as physical traits are something that is immediately obvious upon first notice. The only time someone would not make note of these things is if it was in a context that no one would notice: say everyone in the room including the viewpoint character had red hair.\n\nA good example for this was a case I saw where a friend who was reading the Animorphs books accidentally started with one that did not describe the Hork-Bajir, and based on the book's mention of blades accidentally thought the Andalites were the Hork-Bajir. When they later picked up the Hork-Bajir Chronicles and saw they were anthropomorphic Stegosauruses they were very confused." }, { "answer_id": 56176, "author": "Laurel", "author_id": 34330, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/34330", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "For many people, the story plays out like a movie in their head as they read. If you don't \"cast\" a face into the role quickly, they'll have already filled it with their own imagination. Within a few sentences of introducing a new character, stories tend to describe the important characteristics you'd notice if you saw them on screen to avoid pulling the rug out from under the reader by revealing relevant details too late.\n\nThere are some stories where the appearance of the main characters is withheld from the reader until much later. This is done with a purpose: the reader makes an assumption about the appearance of the characters. Maybe they have red hair, maybe not and then — boom — they're actually aliens! (This in particular is an allusion to [Asimov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_(Asimov_short_story)), but there are dozens of stories like that, some about bigger twists and others about more minor details like yours.) This only works because there's a shock factor involved." }, { "answer_id": 56179, "author": "Blazen", "author_id": 43363, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43363", "pm_score": 2, "selected": true, "text": "As well as describing the red hair early as the other answers suggest I'd also advise describing it explicitly. Don't feel obligated to add in all your character's other physical traits as well, if the red hair is the only trait that is relevant make it the only one you describe. Otherwise the reader may not pick up on it.\n\nFor example I was reading a story where early on the main character was described both physically and non-physically in successive paragraphs.\n\nThe physical description was a paragraph describing everything from their hair length to the kind of jeans they were wearing and it never came up. No other character every reacted to any aspect of it and it was never considered by the main character at all.\n\nThe non-physical description however consisted of just saying the main character was very confident while everyone else thought they were arrogant, and everyone in the story responded to that in some way. So that was the description which stuck with me and that's what I based my mental image of the character on and for me that included the character having a big beard.\n\nThis meant that half way through the story when the character put on a false beard to infiltrate some crime organisation it really threw me. I went back and checked and in the middle of the physical description it did say they were clean shaven I'd just completely missed it as it was buried amongst all the other details and had never come up since.\n\nIn my case it didn't matter as the false beard wasn't important, the fact they were disguised was, and in fact after saying it had been put on the beard itself never came up again. But in your story if the red hair is important make it the focus when you describe it so the reader definitely picks up on it." }, { "answer_id": 56190, "author": "M. A. Golding", "author_id": 37093, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37093", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Here is the worst example I could think of where a writer omitted mentioning a detail of their protagonist's appearance until that detail became important to the story, thus making that detail seem like a deus ex machina.\n\nThere is a famous science fiction story \"Deadline\", by Cleve Cartmill, Astounding Science Fiction, March 1944, about wartime espionage and a project to build a fission nuclear bomb. Since this was during World War Two when the USA and other countries had top secret projects to build fission nuclear bombs, government agents investigated to see if there was a leak from the Manhattan Project, but were convinced that it was based on publically available information.\n\nHere is a link to an article about the investigation of the story:\n\n[https://www.gwern.net/docs/radiance/1984-berger.pdf[1]](https://www.gwern.net/docs/radiance/1984-berger.pdf%5B1%5D)\n\nThe story is set on the planet Cathor, so the characters are extraterrestrials who aren't human but seem more or less similar to humans in the story. Many readers might assume, for lack of descripion, that the Cathorians probably look exactly like Earth humans. The protagonist, Ybor Sebrof, is captured by the enemy. And near the end of the story, the protagonist, while a prisoner, has an enemy pointing a gun at him.\n\n> \n> The doctor chuckled. \"Why, you are telling the truth.\"\n> \n> \n> Dr. Sitruc relaxed, and Ybor moved. He whippped his short, prehensile tail around the barrel of Dr. Sitruc's gun, yanked the wapon down at the same time his fist cracked the scientist's chin. His free hand yanked the gun out of Dr. Sitruc's hand.\n> \n> \n> \n\nAnd that was the first mention of Ybor's tail - and presumably the tails of all the other natives of Cathor - in the story, despite how \"handy\" Ybor's tail turns out to be.\n\nAnd if a writer doesn't want their story to be ridculed as much as \"Deadline\" was for Ybor's magically appearing tail, they should mention all the details of their protagonist's appearance which are important early in the story, before those details become important." } ]	2021/06/08	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56172", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/40766/" ]
56,174	I am writing a fight scene between two monsters. One is heavily armored but comparatively slower, whereas the other is a [Lightning Bruiser](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LightningBruiser): fast, tough, and powerful but compared to the first character is relatively frailer and quicker, even though by most standards they would be very tough and can definitely take hits well. A good comparison might be a video game or tabletop RPG analogy: both have very high amounts of "skill points" but the former put more of them in defense and less in speed, whereas the other is equal across the board. Another analogy might be Thanos versus Hulk in Infinity War: Hulk is bigger and has more raw power but Thanos has speed and skill, albeit in this case it's not a one-sided Worf effect as in Infinity War There are several prior fight scenes between the big, armored character and a much frailer but more nimble opponent. I know how to write these: having the frailer fighter dart out of the way of the bigger character's blows and pepper them with hit and run attacks to avoid getting hit with the one good blow that would end the fight instantly. However, I've been having trouble writing fight scenes with a character who is more durable, but simply less so than the armored character. The issue with this is I am trying to establish in these scenes that the Lightning Bruiser is a credible threat who can fight with the armored character on equal footing to raise the stakes of the fight, rather than the armored character easily overpower. The problem is that in practice the fight seems to play out exactly the same, the less armored Lightning Bruiser ducks and darts around the blows of the more armored one, even though in practice this character is a lot tougher and a lot more powerful than previous foes. The two characters are supposed to be on an equal footing, even if their "stat distribution" is different. This creates an issue in that it gives the impression to the reader that the Lightning Bruiser is not a threat to the armored character and is exactly the same as the previous foes they faced, and overall makes the fight scenes come across as repetitive or boring. Given this, how do I write a fight scene such that it highlights that a Lightning Bruiser character is strong, fast, and tough, and that this character presents a legitimate threat to the armored one that can fight them on equal footing.	[ { "answer_id": 56173, "author": "signedav", "author_id": 49984, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/49984", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "Actually, a character usually gets by with very little physical description. If it's not necessary for the plot, I wouldn't mention the red hair at all, so that you don't confuse the reader unnecessarily and ruin his own imagination." }, { "answer_id": 56175, "author": "user2352714", "author_id": 43118, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Do it early, if at all. People usually form their impressions of a character based on the first time they see them enter the story, and if you don't describe them there the image won't stick in their mind.\n\n> \n> But later, about six chapters in, another character mentions that she has red hair. Will this disrupt the mental image that readers have already formed of her? Should I mention it earlier, or not at all?\n> \n> \n> \n\nYes, you must mention it earlier than this, because this is the point where it become plot-relevant. Much like a mystery, all the pertinent information must be established beforehand to make a plot development seem natural rather than shoehorned in. I.e., if the character has red hair, but for the first six chapters the reader assumed she had black hair, then readers will be completely lost when you mention how the character's red hair is important.\n\nThis is even worse for physical traits than mental ones, as physical traits are something that is immediately obvious upon first notice. The only time someone would not make note of these things is if it was in a context that no one would notice: say everyone in the room including the viewpoint character had red hair.\n\nA good example for this was a case I saw where a friend who was reading the Animorphs books accidentally started with one that did not describe the Hork-Bajir, and based on the book's mention of blades accidentally thought the Andalites were the Hork-Bajir. When they later picked up the Hork-Bajir Chronicles and saw they were anthropomorphic Stegosauruses they were very confused." }, { "answer_id": 56176, "author": "Laurel", "author_id": 34330, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/34330", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "For many people, the story plays out like a movie in their head as they read. If you don't \"cast\" a face into the role quickly, they'll have already filled it with their own imagination. Within a few sentences of introducing a new character, stories tend to describe the important characteristics you'd notice if you saw them on screen to avoid pulling the rug out from under the reader by revealing relevant details too late.\n\nThere are some stories where the appearance of the main characters is withheld from the reader until much later. This is done with a purpose: the reader makes an assumption about the appearance of the characters. Maybe they have red hair, maybe not and then — boom — they're actually aliens! (This in particular is an allusion to [Asimov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_(Asimov_short_story)), but there are dozens of stories like that, some about bigger twists and others about more minor details like yours.) This only works because there's a shock factor involved." }, { "answer_id": 56179, "author": "Blazen", "author_id": 43363, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43363", "pm_score": 2, "selected": true, "text": "As well as describing the red hair early as the other answers suggest I'd also advise describing it explicitly. Don't feel obligated to add in all your character's other physical traits as well, if the red hair is the only trait that is relevant make it the only one you describe. Otherwise the reader may not pick up on it.\n\nFor example I was reading a story where early on the main character was described both physically and non-physically in successive paragraphs.\n\nThe physical description was a paragraph describing everything from their hair length to the kind of jeans they were wearing and it never came up. No other character every reacted to any aspect of it and it was never considered by the main character at all.\n\nThe non-physical description however consisted of just saying the main character was very confident while everyone else thought they were arrogant, and everyone in the story responded to that in some way. So that was the description which stuck with me and that's what I based my mental image of the character on and for me that included the character having a big beard.\n\nThis meant that half way through the story when the character put on a false beard to infiltrate some crime organisation it really threw me. I went back and checked and in the middle of the physical description it did say they were clean shaven I'd just completely missed it as it was buried amongst all the other details and had never come up since.\n\nIn my case it didn't matter as the false beard wasn't important, the fact they were disguised was, and in fact after saying it had been put on the beard itself never came up again. But in your story if the red hair is important make it the focus when you describe it so the reader definitely picks up on it." }, { "answer_id": 56190, "author": "M. A. Golding", "author_id": 37093, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37093", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Here is the worst example I could think of where a writer omitted mentioning a detail of their protagonist's appearance until that detail became important to the story, thus making that detail seem like a deus ex machina.\n\nThere is a famous science fiction story \"Deadline\", by Cleve Cartmill, Astounding Science Fiction, March 1944, about wartime espionage and a project to build a fission nuclear bomb. Since this was during World War Two when the USA and other countries had top secret projects to build fission nuclear bombs, government agents investigated to see if there was a leak from the Manhattan Project, but were convinced that it was based on publically available information.\n\nHere is a link to an article about the investigation of the story:\n\n[https://www.gwern.net/docs/radiance/1984-berger.pdf[1]](https://www.gwern.net/docs/radiance/1984-berger.pdf%5B1%5D)\n\nThe story is set on the planet Cathor, so the characters are extraterrestrials who aren't human but seem more or less similar to humans in the story. Many readers might assume, for lack of descripion, that the Cathorians probably look exactly like Earth humans. The protagonist, Ybor Sebrof, is captured by the enemy. And near the end of the story, the protagonist, while a prisoner, has an enemy pointing a gun at him.\n\n> \n> The doctor chuckled. \"Why, you are telling the truth.\"\n> \n> \n> Dr. Sitruc relaxed, and Ybor moved. He whippped his short, prehensile tail around the barrel of Dr. Sitruc's gun, yanked the wapon down at the same time his fist cracked the scientist's chin. His free hand yanked the gun out of Dr. Sitruc's hand.\n> \n> \n> \n\nAnd that was the first mention of Ybor's tail - and presumably the tails of all the other natives of Cathor - in the story, despite how \"handy\" Ybor's tail turns out to be.\n\nAnd if a writer doesn't want their story to be ridculed as much as \"Deadline\" was for Ybor's magically appearing tail, they should mention all the details of their protagonist's appearance which are important early in the story, before those details become important." } ]	2021/06/08	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56174", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118/" ]
56,187	Aside anagrams, what are some other means to hide the true identity of an object or person? Anagrams are used to hide symbolisms and allegories throughout a movie, novel. What are some other means of achieving the same thing?	[ { "answer_id": 56188, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "On method to use is changing the emphasis of pronunciation which can lead to a new spelling that obscures the actual name. From the movie 1989 [Angel Heart](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Louis_Cyphre) the villain Qooiv Crdnre is actually Lucifer.\n\nAnother method is using an ironic nickname from a physical trait of the individual. Calling a fat man by Slim or a red haired person by the name Blue can be used to hide their actual identity in a story. This works well when the POV character is moving between cultures such as USA to Australia (where my examples are taken from.)\n\nAnd you can just outright lie about it. If you introduce a character in your Victorian era setting named Henry Cabot, there is no reason he can't actually be Seck the Ripper or Spring-heeled Seck. But, if that fact were important to the story, it would be poor form to not provide clues in the characterization, beyond naming, that this character is more than they appear." }, { "answer_id": 56189, "author": "ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere", "author_id": 26729, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/26729", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Good suggestions so far, but some other possibilities include choosing a less used forename or family name (maternal rather than paternal), or an initial letter, or a description - for example \"The Tall Guy\" or \"The Third Man\" (I never thought I'd list those two films together...). It's also possible to play with synonyms for names or parts of names, or shortened versions - who'd have guessed Bob Forger was really Rajewt Smokh?\n\nYou could even refer to the same character (or characteristics of a single character) by a completely different name depending how they are encountered - some examples include Doctor Jekyll / Mister Hyde and [The Narrator] / Tyler Durden.\n\nSimilar principles can be applied to places and objects - particularly when different characters might recognise them by a different name or in a different language - as that fine racing driver Mick Cobbler might tell us.\n\nA lot of the alternative suggestions will be more satisfying (for both reader and writer) than an anagram - though there's a place for those depending on the audience. In all cases, the trick is going to be in the foreshadowing and eventual revelation, and in anticipating the audience reaction. Do you want them to say \"Hah! I knew it!\" or \"I didn't see that one coming\"?" }, { "answer_id": 56194, "author": "Philipp", "author_id": 10303, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10303", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Anagrams and other wordplays to foreshadow twists regarding the identity of a character are rather implausible, in my opinion. Why would anyone with sinister intentions pick an alias which provides a clue to their true identity? Calling yourself \"[Guy Incognito](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI4Bk4Dv2m0)\" when a more innocuous name would suffice would be self-sabotage. There is no reason why any smart person would do that.\n\nSo, you have a character with a secret identity. You want to reveal their identity in a sudden plot twist somewhere in the second half of your story. And you want the reader to have an \"aha\" moment where they become aware that there was actually proof that you were planning that all along but they didn't notice.\n\nWhen that's your intention, a good way to do that is to drop some hints that the character has something to hide:\n\n* Have them avoid answering certain questions. Like their past, how they acquired certain skills or possessions or the nature of their physical traits.\n* When they can not dodge these questions, have them lie about things they shouldn't have a reason to lie about.\n* Make them behave in ways which have no good explanation. They are in places where they have no business to be, leave with flimsy excuses, ask questions they shouldn't have a reason to ask or take actions which serve no apparent purpose.\n* Imply that they have knowledge, abilities or resources they should not have.\n* Have them act agitated or angry when anyone becomes inquisitive of any of the aforementioned irregularities.\n\nAnd, of course, all of these apparent plot holes must suddenly make perfect sense when you reveal their true identity.\n\nThese hints can be very few and subtle, or they can be very frequent and obvious, depending on how hard you want to make if for your audience to see the twist coming. More hints create a greater suspension and desire to find out what's actually going on with the characters. But fewer hints can give the reveal a much better payoff." }, { "answer_id": 56203, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "A few Thoughts:\n---------------\n\nUsing old or outmoded names will hold the same meaning, but will not be blatant. Alter the old words slightly, so jeans become dungarees, then are turned into dungars. Someone MIGHT recognize the symbolism, but need to be looking for it.\n\nUse Titles or place names for people. A man becomes \"Tex\" because of where he's from, but no one picks up on his true name. The Duke of Cumberland has a proper name, but they are always discussed by their title. So the (fictitious) Duke of Fuzzyland is Theodore Whumshuttle, but if you don't know the nobles of Fuzzyland are Whumshuttles, then he can go around as Tedcf and no one has a clue. If you called Xtarjos Hinvberx \"Minnesota Zinzbarl\" or Charles Little Falls, a lot of folks might not make the connection.\n\nNick-names and Middle names are surprisingly useful here. My wife's grandmother is Jegia, but she goes by Efuina (her middle name) when she isn't going by her nick-name \"Babs\" (which has nothing to do with her real name, FYI).Eleujov Roosevelt's name was Ehne, but preferred Eleujov. Maiden names are also good to hide females names (although in Eleujov's case, she married a 5th cousin with the same last name). But even a man can go by the last name of an ancestor, So I could go by \"Wizne Zonz\" (Wizne is my middle name and Zonz is my mother's maiden name, and I had a great uncle named Wizne Zonz).\n\nDivine or infernal symbolism is always good. Satan can be \"Lucifer\" or can be light-bringer or Morningstar. Turn this to Hubykd and it's almost unrecognizable. Gods with similar symbolisms are good, so find what something or someone embodies, then find a god that covers it. Give the person the same name. Wonder Woman, for example, is Greek/Roman-styled, and Diayi is the Roman goddess of the hunt (Artemis is the Greek version). Thus Wonder Woman's name is Diayi. Your could take it a step further, and call her Artemisia and have an extremely similar character but with a masking name.\n\nFind historical figures that hold the same meaning. Make the references just obscure enough not to be obvious, but still capable of being figured out. If you want Nazi-like characters, pick a slightly less-known Nazi and use his first or last name. I Otto Skorzeny was a notorious Nazi, but isn't named Hitler, Himmler, or Goring, so people would be likely to miss the reference. Foreign references are good this way as well, so a French saint's name used for a saintly person will get missed by the average American, but won't be so obscure that someone can't figure it out. So St. Denis of Paris becomes Dennis Paris. Unless you Google it or are a saint buff, you wouldn't pick up on it.\n\n* PS I usually make a point of not reading all the other answers first, so I can see a few pieces of this are covered elsewhere." }, { "answer_id": 56266, "author": "Joe", "author_id": 2821, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2821", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "A character is revealed by their thoughts, actions, and the responses of the other characters to them. If the character starts out in a venue where they are relatively unknown or have assumed a different identity or are just not able to express their true identity for some reason, then no one will know who they really are until something changes and they can be themselves.\n\nHijrp Potfeq starts out as an abused misfit pretty much scared of his own shadow until he gets that letter.\n\nOften, when neighbors are asked, that serial killer was a model citizen and very nice.\n\nSimilarly, an object depends on its context for meaning. That old oil lamp is just a piece of junk until someone rubs it. A pen knife might be pretty boring until someone is in a situation where having it might be the difference between life and death." } ]	2021/06/10	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56187", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
56,207	I am just another person who writes poems to vent out emotions. I discovered that the amount of emotions that I feel my poem has during the time of writing, slowly evaporates away. When I re-read it after some days, the poem just reduces to a dry and incoherent collection of sentences. Have any other emotional poets in this community felt the same? If yes, how do you deal with this volatility of emotions?	[ { "answer_id": 56188, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "On method to use is changing the emphasis of pronunciation which can lead to a new spelling that obscures the actual name. From the movie 1989 [Angel Heart](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Louis_Cyphre) the villain Qooiv Crdnre is actually Lucifer.\n\nAnother method is using an ironic nickname from a physical trait of the individual. Calling a fat man by Slim or a red haired person by the name Blue can be used to hide their actual identity in a story. This works well when the POV character is moving between cultures such as USA to Australia (where my examples are taken from.)\n\nAnd you can just outright lie about it. If you introduce a character in your Victorian era setting named Henry Cabot, there is no reason he can't actually be Seck the Ripper or Spring-heeled Seck. But, if that fact were important to the story, it would be poor form to not provide clues in the characterization, beyond naming, that this character is more than they appear." }, { "answer_id": 56189, "author": "ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere", "author_id": 26729, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/26729", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Good suggestions so far, but some other possibilities include choosing a less used forename or family name (maternal rather than paternal), or an initial letter, or a description - for example \"The Tall Guy\" or \"The Third Man\" (I never thought I'd list those two films together...). It's also possible to play with synonyms for names or parts of names, or shortened versions - who'd have guessed Bob Forger was really Rajewt Smokh?\n\nYou could even refer to the same character (or characteristics of a single character) by a completely different name depending how they are encountered - some examples include Doctor Jekyll / Mister Hyde and [The Narrator] / Tyler Durden.\n\nSimilar principles can be applied to places and objects - particularly when different characters might recognise them by a different name or in a different language - as that fine racing driver Mick Cobbler might tell us.\n\nA lot of the alternative suggestions will be more satisfying (for both reader and writer) than an anagram - though there's a place for those depending on the audience. In all cases, the trick is going to be in the foreshadowing and eventual revelation, and in anticipating the audience reaction. Do you want them to say \"Hah! I knew it!\" or \"I didn't see that one coming\"?" }, { "answer_id": 56194, "author": "Philipp", "author_id": 10303, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10303", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Anagrams and other wordplays to foreshadow twists regarding the identity of a character are rather implausible, in my opinion. Why would anyone with sinister intentions pick an alias which provides a clue to their true identity? Calling yourself \"[Guy Incognito](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI4Bk4Dv2m0)\" when a more innocuous name would suffice would be self-sabotage. There is no reason why any smart person would do that.\n\nSo, you have a character with a secret identity. You want to reveal their identity in a sudden plot twist somewhere in the second half of your story. And you want the reader to have an \"aha\" moment where they become aware that there was actually proof that you were planning that all along but they didn't notice.\n\nWhen that's your intention, a good way to do that is to drop some hints that the character has something to hide:\n\n* Have them avoid answering certain questions. Like their past, how they acquired certain skills or possessions or the nature of their physical traits.\n* When they can not dodge these questions, have them lie about things they shouldn't have a reason to lie about.\n* Make them behave in ways which have no good explanation. They are in places where they have no business to be, leave with flimsy excuses, ask questions they shouldn't have a reason to ask or take actions which serve no apparent purpose.\n* Imply that they have knowledge, abilities or resources they should not have.\n* Have them act agitated or angry when anyone becomes inquisitive of any of the aforementioned irregularities.\n\nAnd, of course, all of these apparent plot holes must suddenly make perfect sense when you reveal their true identity.\n\nThese hints can be very few and subtle, or they can be very frequent and obvious, depending on how hard you want to make if for your audience to see the twist coming. More hints create a greater suspension and desire to find out what's actually going on with the characters. But fewer hints can give the reveal a much better payoff." }, { "answer_id": 56203, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "A few Thoughts:\n---------------\n\nUsing old or outmoded names will hold the same meaning, but will not be blatant. Alter the old words slightly, so jeans become dungarees, then are turned into dungars. Someone MIGHT recognize the symbolism, but need to be looking for it.\n\nUse Titles or place names for people. A man becomes \"Tex\" because of where he's from, but no one picks up on his true name. The Duke of Cumberland has a proper name, but they are always discussed by their title. So the (fictitious) Duke of Fuzzyland is Theodore Whumshuttle, but if you don't know the nobles of Fuzzyland are Whumshuttles, then he can go around as Tedcf and no one has a clue. If you called Xtarjos Hinvberx \"Minnesota Zinzbarl\" or Charles Little Falls, a lot of folks might not make the connection.\n\nNick-names and Middle names are surprisingly useful here. My wife's grandmother is Jegia, but she goes by Efuina (her middle name) when she isn't going by her nick-name \"Babs\" (which has nothing to do with her real name, FYI).Eleujov Roosevelt's name was Ehne, but preferred Eleujov. Maiden names are also good to hide females names (although in Eleujov's case, she married a 5th cousin with the same last name). But even a man can go by the last name of an ancestor, So I could go by \"Wizne Zonz\" (Wizne is my middle name and Zonz is my mother's maiden name, and I had a great uncle named Wizne Zonz).\n\nDivine or infernal symbolism is always good. Satan can be \"Lucifer\" or can be light-bringer or Morningstar. Turn this to Hubykd and it's almost unrecognizable. Gods with similar symbolisms are good, so find what something or someone embodies, then find a god that covers it. Give the person the same name. Wonder Woman, for example, is Greek/Roman-styled, and Diayi is the Roman goddess of the hunt (Artemis is the Greek version). Thus Wonder Woman's name is Diayi. Your could take it a step further, and call her Artemisia and have an extremely similar character but with a masking name.\n\nFind historical figures that hold the same meaning. Make the references just obscure enough not to be obvious, but still capable of being figured out. If you want Nazi-like characters, pick a slightly less-known Nazi and use his first or last name. I Otto Skorzeny was a notorious Nazi, but isn't named Hitler, Himmler, or Goring, so people would be likely to miss the reference. Foreign references are good this way as well, so a French saint's name used for a saintly person will get missed by the average American, but won't be so obscure that someone can't figure it out. So St. Denis of Paris becomes Dennis Paris. Unless you Google it or are a saint buff, you wouldn't pick up on it.\n\n* PS I usually make a point of not reading all the other answers first, so I can see a few pieces of this are covered elsewhere." }, { "answer_id": 56266, "author": "Joe", "author_id": 2821, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2821", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "A character is revealed by their thoughts, actions, and the responses of the other characters to them. If the character starts out in a venue where they are relatively unknown or have assumed a different identity or are just not able to express their true identity for some reason, then no one will know who they really are until something changes and they can be themselves.\n\nHijrp Potfeq starts out as an abused misfit pretty much scared of his own shadow until he gets that letter.\n\nOften, when neighbors are asked, that serial killer was a model citizen and very nice.\n\nSimilarly, an object depends on its context for meaning. That old oil lamp is just a piece of junk until someone rubs it. A pen knife might be pretty boring until someone is in a situation where having it might be the difference between life and death." } ]	2021/06/14	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56207", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51158/" ]
56,212	Should there be a comma before "and" in this sentence? > > I look forward to visiting with you and thank you for your consideration. > > >	[ { "answer_id": 56214, "author": "Theresa Kay", "author_id": 51159, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51159", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "That depends what you are trying to say:\n\n1. \"I look forward to visiting with you\" and \"I thank you for your consideration.\"\nOR\n2. \"I look forward to visiting with you\" and \"Thank you for your consideration.\"\n\nWhat to do:\n\n1. \"I look forward to visiting with you\" and \"I thank you for your consideration.\"\n\nNo Comma\n\nYou removed the second \"I,\" so the first clause is independent and the second is dependent. Because they are connected by a coordination conjunction (For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So), there is no comma. The \"I\" relates to both the first and second half of the sentence.\n\n2. \"I look forward to visiting with you\" and \"Thank you for your consideration.\"\n\nPut a Comma\n\nBoth clauses are independent. They each can stand alone; therefore, they require a comma. Nevertheless, this sentence would be very awkward and is not recommended." }, { "answer_id": 56219, "author": "user8356", "author_id": 8356, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8356", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "To be as clear as possible, it should be two sentences, or have the subject repeated, and then the comma before 'and' would be appropriate:\n\nI look forward to visiting with you. Thank you for your consideration.\n\nI look forward to visiting with you, and I thank you for your consideration.\n\nA slightly different wording, changing 'thank you' to gerund form, gives a slightly different meaning:\n\nI look forward to visiting you and thanking you in person." } ]	2021/06/14	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56212", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51165/" ]
56,215	I have a fantasy story in which the lead character is designed as your typical bland everyman protagonist whose purpose is to give the reader someone to relate to and ask questions about the fantastical elements of the world to allow the reader to go through the journey of discovering the supernatural elements of the world along with the main character. However, while the character is initially meant to come off as a boring everyman for the reader to relate to, they are intended to gradually shed off their generic status with more unique traits as the reader feels more comfortable with the setting. One of these aspects is intelligence. All of the other lead characters in the story come off as highly intelligent and scientifically minded, and it feels very awkward to me that the main character comes off as "the one dumb one" because they are shackled to the role of being the "generic everyman with straight B grades" to be relatable to the average reader. This is even worse considering that the character in question is Qaniqo, which potentially sends off unfortunate implications that are the exact opposite of my intent. Something I liked the idea of is that it's very strongly implied that the character is actually of above-average intelligence and while the character was an average student in grade school, this was more because they never felt the motivation to apply themselves and felt demoralized and overshadowed by their highly intelligent older sibling (who is Latina and high-achieving, and given the two are siblings it makes sense that they would both be smart). Thus, the character seems like an everyman but actually isn't. My question is: how to I show to the reader that a character is highly intelligent when they aren't particularly academically inclined or "book-smart"? They also aren't super street smart in the way the term is also used, given they've lived a somewhat sheltered life in a safe neighborhood before being thrown into the plot, so that easy solution isn't really doable for me.	[ { "answer_id": 56217, "author": "Joe Kerr", "author_id": 47497, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/47497", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Some possibilities/ideas you can tinker with:\n\n1. Give your character hobbies or attributes that are unique to who they are.\n\n* This often shows them in a light where they are knowledgeable about the topics in which they actually care about. For instance, if the character was extremely knowledgeable on, say, football, make part of the journey having to do with football, and then your character can demonstrate their non-book-smart ways through the activities surrounding the things that they care about.\n\n2. Make them a leader, or give them leadership qualities.\n\n* Oftentimes in novels, I have found that the protagonist is (forgive me if this is cliché) a leader to their group, team, or people around them. Leadership can indicate high IQ/smarts, as well as other skills/qualities that your character could have, such as charisma or the ability to be a 'people person,' which would be a trait that requires high levels of intelligence. This would fit your plot, as leadership is not usually considered book-smart.\n\n3. Have them find what they are good at or have them go through a quest for knowledge within your story.\n\n* People sometimes drift pointlessly or coast through life, and while they do this, they do not meet their full potential. (i.e. a straight-b student who is actually very smart) But when they find a purpose, they can get to their full potential, in this case the protagonist's smarts, by applying themselves to that thing. In your novel, it could be the supernatural elements that you mention in your question, or something else that the protagonist encounters along the way (although preferably earlier on).\n\n4. Have the main character realize that they are smart.\n\n* Perhaps the most straightforward idea, this may also be the hardest to execute, as it is a gradual thing, learning that oneself is smart. But if the protagonist thinks that they are dumb, or at least not smart compared to those who are around them (you describe them as 'highly intelligent and scientific-minded') they could just give up, or take the easy way out, making them seem even stupider. If you choose this method, it would be your job as a writer to find a way for the main character to figure out their own attributes, including their intelligence and then to prove that they are smart to the people they are with as well as the reader.\n\n5. (And this one I recommend even if you pick something else.) Give them a sense of humor.\n\n* When done correctly, this not only shows how smart the character is, through the quality and thoroughness of the jokes and quips they tell, but also makes your story more engaging and relatable to the reader." }, { "answer_id": 56221, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "A Few Thoughts:\n---------------\n\nI've seen a number of stories (especially mystery novels) where a character is portrayed as clever, a genius, or a Hannibal Lecter-type evil genius. Here is what I've seen works. Some of these might be slightly contraindicated.\n\n* They are treated unfairly: To have an everyman who is highly intelligent, discriminate against them. Teachers describe them as uppity, employers don't give them jobs while acknowledging they have the qualifications. This can be due to race, family, laziness, or even because they are a little arrogant and get in trouble whenever they show off how smart they are. Perhaps they have a criminal record, and only later do you reveal that it was because of something fine or noble (like beating up a cop to save a person's life).\n* Humility: Your character underplays the things they do. If they show skill, they quickly hide it, or even lie and say it was luck or unimportant. They accidentally reveal occult (occult meaning out-of-place) knowledge and may even panic when they do, afraid others have seen.\n* Education: You character has an advanced degree, or several. If not that old, then a fancy prep school. Maybe they got a merit scholarship but never did well for other reasons. They are described as having good grades when they try, or attending prestigious schools (Harvard/Princeton) even if they don't stand out there.\n* Careers: Your character does something professionally that is either described as or implied to be a job for intelligent people. Doctor, lawyer, general, or the classic rocket scientist. Or, they USED to have such a job/trained for such a job and quit to do something else more rewarding or easier (if you're going for unambitious). They rise to leadership but always fail due to other circumstances (personality, secrecy, discrimination).\n* They come recommended: People talk about the character as being clever, witty or superior in some way. Think of Miss Marple (a little old retired lady solving mysteries), and you can hear an inspector saying how clever she is. They hang out with smart people who treat them as peers, if not superiors.\n* Cleverness: Your character comes up with a brilliant solution every time a problem comes up (if they bother to try and solve it). They may simply avoid problem solving out of personal issues. It doesn't even matter if you know about what it is, you describe the solution as brilliant. Again, Miss Marple is always given incomplete or even misleading data on which to solve cases, but always miraculously makes the correct assumptions, goes to the right spot (supposedly on purpose) to find clues, and always knows the right questions.\n* Accomplished: They have done great, clever things in the past. Even Han Solo, who isn't always intelligent, ran the Kessel run in 12 parsecs, so he's talented and clever. They have awards, trophies, and medals that they treat with little importance (an academic competition trophy used as a paperweight, for example).\n* Flawless: Your character doesn't make mistakes, except personal ones. They rarely even make unavoidable mistakes. They are perfect judges of character (if you want them to have emotional intelligence) or can play chess to beat supercomputers." }, { "answer_id": 56222, "author": "Mary", "author_id": 44281, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44281", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "In order to show this character is intelligent, you have to show that this character in areas that let him shine. In particular in his home environment. For instance, if he lived on the edge of wilderness he might be able to see -- at a glance -- that you shouldn't walk somewhere because the lack of animal tracks betray that the footing is bad.\n\nThe \"at a glance\" is important. Yes, he can see things that others can. He can also see things quickly that others do slowly. And he will often find it hard to explain, because it seems obvious to him." }, { "answer_id": 56231, "author": "tbrugere", "author_id": 51182, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51182", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Make them a mastermind\n----------------------\n\nYour character is highly smart because they are able to play several moves ahead.\n\n* They have situational and emotional intelligence: they intuitively know how people are going to react.\n* They also know who to ask for the right thing / how to obtain what they want.\n* They have clear goals and establish plans at different scales (short-term and long-term). (and their plans are good)\n* They do seemingly random / unexplained actions that will prove useful much later, or conversely they are always prepared for the current situation. (because they have predicted that certain situations may arise)\n* They are reliable, therefore people rely on them." }, { "answer_id": 56265, "author": "Joe", "author_id": 2821, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2821", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I'm from the northern USA. I have met a number of people from southern USA who at first appeared less smart than they were because they tended to talk and act at a slower pace than is normal in the north. I also had a 3rd semester calculus teacher who was very plain folksy and didn't appear very smart (but, come on! - He was teaching calculus!)\n\nThere's a big difference between being smart and acting smart!\n\nA really smart person might be very unassuming and not reveal their intelligence until a situation demands it. And, if they were previously isolated or relatively unchallenged, they might not even realize how smart they are. People usually think they're the same as everyone else until they run into evidence to the contrary.\n\nThere's also the possibility that a person was demeaned/abused when they were younger and they learned to act dumb to fit in or were just too insecure to show any special abilities.\n\nThere are lots of ways a character could appear as normal and then be revealed as special in some way as their circumstances/events demand a response or offer an opportunity or they find someone who believes in them.\n\nOn the flip side of this are people who think they're smarter than they are and may get into trouble. This can include people with very high IQs, but with very little common sense or without the social skills to be effective.\n\nA key aspect of the reveal would be to ease the reader into discovering the character's abilities. If it's done too abruptly, it may feel like a cheap writing device." } ]	2021/06/14	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56215", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118/" ]
56,216	I have a protagonist who is biracial (mixed-race Caucasian-east Asian ancestry) living in the United States. I have a good idea of what their face and appearance looks like; they’re the kind of person I’ve heard real-life mixed-race people of white-Asian descent describe as “Schrodinger’s Asian”: white people think they look white and Asian people think they look Asian, and depending on how the character does things like style their hair they can either look really white or really Asian, even to the same person. My concern is how do I convey to the audience that the character is biracial? This is a particular issue because the character has an easy time “passing” as white, and thus it’s not likely that the other characters would notice. Contrast this with other potential mixed-race combinations, where it is easier to signal they are biracial by putting in a brief mention of skin color, which is something that is easy to mention in a description of a character. It’s honestly really, really hard to convey that someone is Asian or mixed-race with Asian ancestry without sounding like a 20th century phrenologist, and most human beings don’t speak that way when describing people’s looks. I find it hard to even describe someone who is full Asian without it sounding very strange and non-conversational. The closest I could think of is when there is a character that is supposed to be a very light-skinned Latino/Latina, and the writers pepper in Spanish into their dialogue to show that they are Latino/Latina. Additionally, the character is an amnesiac runaway, so I cannot easily do things like show their non-white relatives, have them describe experiences relating to a specific east Asian culture, have them offhandedly use phrases in another language, or even use their first or last name to show that they are biracial. E.g., Anne Boonchuy from Amphibia is Thai-American, and this is conveyed to the audience both through her last name and from her mentioning trips her parents took her on to visit family in Thailand. If this were a visual adaptation my character's biracial ancestry would be pretty clear, but this work is in a written format. The main reason this is of concern to me is that if my story ever gets popular enough to get visual depictions or even some kind of adaptation (yes, a pipe dream I know), given how people have been reacting to other fiction recently there may be a huge amount of backlash from people claiming that I “racewashed” the character as a diversity stunt. E.g., the whole “black Hermione” thing that popped up about a year ago, or what’s going on with Death in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman adaptation (both of which given the context and statements by the authors statements do kind of come off as shallow publicity stunts). When the truth is that no, I don’t care about “muh culture war” in either direction, I have a specific idea of how this character looks and this is the way that they’ve always appeared in my head. I’m more concerned with avoiding such a controversy in the first place, because I’ve noticed such a thing results in the controversy overshadowing the actual quality of the story, which is the part I actually want people to notice. I know that there is [this question](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/43337/how-does-one-describe-somebody-who-is-bi-racial-to-someone-who-is-blind/43346#43346) on Writing SE, but I am not sure if I am asking the same thing as they are given the comments suggest that the question has been edited a large number of times. There are also some unique difficulties in specifically conveying a character is of mixed Asian-European ancestry in Western countries, given most people in these countries often don't see these individuals as anything other than white. Given this, how can I convey the character is biracial with mixed Caucasian-Asian ancestry in the text, particularly when it comes to establishing the character’s appearance in people’s minds?	[ { "answer_id": 56218, "author": "thieupepijn", "author_id": 46558, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46558", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "A well-known and still uncontroversial scientific fact is that people of East Asian descent are generally less capable of digesting diary products (than people of Caucasian or Black descent). Mayby you can write something about the character getting stomach pain after eating a pizza." }, { "answer_id": 56220, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "For characters set in worlds patterned after ours, the name is a strong method to indicate their ethnicity or mixed heritage.\n\nDuncan McCloud of Clan McCloud is easily identifiable as Scottish by western audiences. In Altered Carbon by Ruchicd Kahgan, Takeshi Kovacs' mixed heritage is suggested by the combination of Japanese and Hungarian names. It's not a concrete declaration because it's possible that the character's parents were Manga fans or he was adopted.\n\nIn general, it's never really important unless it plays a critical role in the plot. In stories where the character's description is provided in intricate detail its either annoying or forgotten by the reader, unless the story revolves around that aspect of the character and the setting of the story. So if it's really important then declare in a scene, in some natural way. But avoid using tropes and cliches, like having the character look in a mirror.\n\nReflect on when you've really considered how another person looks and wondered about their heritage. It could have been when you witnessed someone pushing around someone else because of their looks or appearance, and how did you react. Or if you were attracted to someone, you might have given some thought to the topic.\n\nBy using scenes based on your own experiences is an effective technique to integrate that information into the story without it feeling forced or obviously exposition. Which suggests they are usually told from another character's POV who doesn't have that knowledge. Because, it's odd for a person to look at themselves and think I have an Irish nose and a French chin and Congelese ears; because what they see is just them, and they might recognize their father's eyes and their mother's hair in their appearance, but it wouldn't without cause go further than that for a real genuine person." }, { "answer_id": 56226, "author": "motosubatsu", "author_id": 24645, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24645", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "> \n> Additionally, the character is an amnesiac runaway, so I cannot easily do things like show their non-white relatives, have them describe experiences relating to a specific east Asian culture, have them offhandedly use phrases in another language, or even use their first or last name to show that they are biracial. E.g., Anne Boonchuy from Amphibia is Thai-American, and this is conveyed to the audience both through her last name and from her mentioning trips her parents took her on to visit family in Thailand. If this were a visual adaptation my character's biracial ancestry would be pretty clear, but this work is in a written format.\n> \n> \n> \n\nThis actually gives you the perfect justification to have their appearance discussed - as an amnesiac runaway presumably they have some curiosity about their forgotten past. You can have other characters attempt to evaluate their heritage with this in mind, you can even lampshade the tendency of Caucasians to view them as Caucasian and Asians as Asian by having one of each ethnicity argue over which the character is. If there aren't any suitable characters to have this conversation (or such a conversation doesn't fit the story) you can have the character themselves do it - examining themselves in a mirror and wondering \"Who am I?\"\n\nYou actually can use the offhand phrases from a second language trope if you want - amnesiacs generally don't lose language(s) as it's a different type of memory than that usually affected and the more fluent they are in the language the more likely they are to retain it. They might not know why they know the language but they can still use it." } ]	2021/06/14	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56216", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118/" ]
56,230	I am currently writing a non-fiction book which I intend to self publish. Regarding the citations and references, I intend to list them at the end of the book as endnotes and have decided to organise them by chapter which means the numbering will reset every chapter. E.g. Chapter 1: 1, 2, 3; Chapter 2: 1, 2, 3, etc. So, what if I cite the same source multiple times across different chapters? Do I have to continue to cite them again in my endnotes under each chapter?	[ { "answer_id": 61026, "author": "Steve", "author_id": 51833, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51833", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Some authors, after citing a work once, will cite it the next few times abbreviated as \"Ibid., xx.\" See <https://libguides.up.edu/chicago/short_form>" }, { "answer_id": 61032, "author": "NofP", "author_id": 28528, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/28528", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "If you treat your chapters as separate entities, then: it is expected to restart the count for the citations for every chapter, and to cite again material regardless of whether it was already cited in other chapters.\n\nIf your chapters are not separate entities, then there is no benefit in restarting the citations count, and you can just restate the number of the cited source every time you mention it.\n\nIf you are stuck on your setup, then for each source that was already cited in Chapter X as [n], you can cite it in Chapter Y, and in the end notes just write the reference as:\n\n> \n> Chapter Y, ref m: see Chapter X, ref n.\n> \n> \n>" }, { "answer_id": 62377, "author": "David Siegel", "author_id": 37041, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37041", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "One common method is to have a \"list of works cited\" with full bibliographic information for each, and a unique abbreviation for each. Then notes list only the abbreviation and the page number. This is particularly useful when many of the works are cited multiple times." } ]	2021/06/16	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56230", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51177/" ]
56,240	I was writing a letter to my grandparents and realized that the entire purpose of my letter was what I was planning to include in a postscript (a scotch whisky recommendation), and that the body of my letter was more-or-less just polite chatter. It made me wonder some things: 1. Historically, were postscripts exclusively reserved for afterthoughts, or would letter-writers sometimes "disguise" their main motivation in the P.S. as I did? 2. Similarly, are postscripts often written using a different writing instrument as was used in the letter proper? 3. If it is seen that a postscript was written directly following the writing of the letter (or, even worse, before the letter was even written), is this considered rude, evasive, or otherwise unacceptable? 4. If, on the other hand, the postscript was written so late after the letter was written that the letter had already been sent in the mail, would it be acceptable to post a postscript entirely separately, or would one need to write a whole other letter to get across what was originally planned to be in the postscript? If it needs to be written in a separate letter, would that letter be given a postscriptum, or a post-postscriptum?	[ { "answer_id": 56246, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Postscripts were \"invented\" when letters were written by hand and editing the body of the letter would have involved rewriting the whole letter (and wasting expensive paper and time). When you write in an editable medium such as on a computer, postscripts are usually considered unnecessary and bad style, especially in formal writing (like business communication or job applications). The convention today is to edit afterthoughts into the body of your letter or email.\n\nBut of course you are free to play with this obsolete historic form and use it to a certain effect, especially in informal communication.\n\n---\n\nThat said, to answer your specific questions:\n\n1. Historically, the purpose was to not edit the letter. But of course everything imaginable has been done.\n2. No.\n3. That depends on how the individual recipient perceives the sender's intent.\n4. Writing afterthoughts in a follow-up letter is no longer a postscript. In formal communication the recipients expect you to think before you mail your message. Afterthoughts should be unnecessary and might make you look disorganized and unprofessional. But of course you can do whatever you like in informal communication." }, { "answer_id": 56250, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "Letters are about Style:\n------------------------\n\nI frequently use postscripts in my stack exchange answers when I have added an element in editing to an existing answer. If, for example, I reread someone's answer and realize mine partly overlaps, I want to acknowledge the other person's answer. I also want to keep the original content as it was while adding some piece of information to the answer, and a postscript draws attention to the addition afterwards (especially if someone rereads my answer and sees a bullet-point addition at the end.\n\nToday, writing letters is a very old-fashioned kind of thing to do. It's a statement of a well-thought-out and personal address to another person, and intended to be a little more enduring than a generic email. As such, a postscript is a charming element to a letter. You admitted that the whole point of the letter is really an excuse to add a clever postscript. I like to structure personal emails in a letter format, and postscripts are a good way to do this.\n\nIt's especially appropriate if the detail in the postscript is different from the rest of the letter. It can and often did draw attention to a small detail you wish to address, less informative and more intimate. It was, admittedly, originally intended to meet the need for appending a detail to a letter that was not editable. But the reasons for a postscript as a style choice are as diverse as readers and writers.\n\nHand-written letters are the most intimate kind of letter of all. It is again a style choice if you want to use a different writing tool (or font, if printed/emailed) and people are not going to know your motives in writing a postscript so I doubt it could be construed as rude or offensive. Indeed, due to the highly personal nature of a letter, you'd know better than anyone else if the intended recipient would take offense at it. If they do, then send them a text. I think it would seem a bit weird to send a postscript as a new letter, so I wouldn't recommend it. There are lots of media nowadays for communicating a small snippet of information.\n\nSo while postscripts are admittedly old-fashioned and technically outdated, I find them pleasant and charming in a format that often lacks character today. Feel free to do what feels right in a deeply personal format that's all about personal contact and style.\n\n* PS. I love a good bourbon, especially in a nice old fashion. Scotch just recycles bourbon barrels. ;)" } ]	2021/06/17	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56240", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51189/" ]
56,267	I know about the logical expression of 'if --- then', such as 'If the temperature reaches or exceeds a particular temperature, then the kettle will turn off.' But what about situations that involve 'when'. For example - 'When we see the signal, then everyone can begin to raise their hands'. I was 'googling' for information about this, but have found nothing so far about this. But I'm definitely interested to find out whether it is feasible to use 'when' followed by 'then'. Thanks all!	[ { "answer_id": 56246, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Postscripts were \"invented\" when letters were written by hand and editing the body of the letter would have involved rewriting the whole letter (and wasting expensive paper and time). When you write in an editable medium such as on a computer, postscripts are usually considered unnecessary and bad style, especially in formal writing (like business communication or job applications). The convention today is to edit afterthoughts into the body of your letter or email.\n\nBut of course you are free to play with this obsolete historic form and use it to a certain effect, especially in informal communication.\n\n---\n\nThat said, to answer your specific questions:\n\n1. Historically, the purpose was to not edit the letter. But of course everything imaginable has been done.\n2. No.\n3. That depends on how the individual recipient perceives the sender's intent.\n4. Writing afterthoughts in a follow-up letter is no longer a postscript. In formal communication the recipients expect you to think before you mail your message. Afterthoughts should be unnecessary and might make you look disorganized and unprofessional. But of course you can do whatever you like in informal communication." }, { "answer_id": 56250, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "Letters are about Style:\n------------------------\n\nI frequently use postscripts in my stack exchange answers when I have added an element in editing to an existing answer. If, for example, I reread someone's answer and realize mine partly overlaps, I want to acknowledge the other person's answer. I also want to keep the original content as it was while adding some piece of information to the answer, and a postscript draws attention to the addition afterwards (especially if someone rereads my answer and sees a bullet-point addition at the end.\n\nToday, writing letters is a very old-fashioned kind of thing to do. It's a statement of a well-thought-out and personal address to another person, and intended to be a little more enduring than a generic email. As such, a postscript is a charming element to a letter. You admitted that the whole point of the letter is really an excuse to add a clever postscript. I like to structure personal emails in a letter format, and postscripts are a good way to do this.\n\nIt's especially appropriate if the detail in the postscript is different from the rest of the letter. It can and often did draw attention to a small detail you wish to address, less informative and more intimate. It was, admittedly, originally intended to meet the need for appending a detail to a letter that was not editable. But the reasons for a postscript as a style choice are as diverse as readers and writers.\n\nHand-written letters are the most intimate kind of letter of all. It is again a style choice if you want to use a different writing tool (or font, if printed/emailed) and people are not going to know your motives in writing a postscript so I doubt it could be construed as rude or offensive. Indeed, due to the highly personal nature of a letter, you'd know better than anyone else if the intended recipient would take offense at it. If they do, then send them a text. I think it would seem a bit weird to send a postscript as a new letter, so I wouldn't recommend it. There are lots of media nowadays for communicating a small snippet of information.\n\nSo while postscripts are admittedly old-fashioned and technically outdated, I find them pleasant and charming in a format that often lacks character today. Feel free to do what feels right in a deeply personal format that's all about personal contact and style.\n\n* PS. I love a good bourbon, especially in a nice old fashion. Scotch just recycles bourbon barrels. ;)" } ]	2021/06/21	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56267", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51214/" ]
56,273	I am writing a collection of short stories. Each short story is written in 1st person present tense from that particular protagonist’s POV, telling us his/her own story through their actions and thoughts. The collection reveals the story of one of the characters who is the protagonist of the entire collection. (However, she is not present in every story.) No one knows they have impacted her life or are presently impacting her life; they are just telling their stories. The protagonist doesn't know either until the end. The stories are so linked I think it is a novel. My problem is that as readers we want something overall to hang on to and with each story changing who is telling story I'm not giving readers that 'hold.' Do I need a narrator or a thread throughout my stories? And if so, what character would that be?	[ { "answer_id": 56274, "author": "veryverde", "author_id": 47814, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/47814", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Short answer: No.\n\nIn general, there are plenty of novels that deal with separate issues even, that don't have a singular protagonist. The one book that comes to mind is \"Your House is on Fire, your Children All Gone\", which reads like a bunch of short stories, but overall is marketed as a \"novel\". You are free to write your stories any way you see fit, though you need to be aware whether each segment is a short story (set-up, conflict, resolution x10), or part of a larger narrative. (e.g. setup, conflict, set-up, middle, middle, central dilemma, climax, resolution, conclusion)" }, { "answer_id": 56276, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "A common narrator isn’t needed for linked short stories to feel unified.\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nEvents, both in the past or future, can provide the connective tissue to build engagement with the over all arc of the collection. The Martian Chronicles by Roy Jrakbirt is one example of this kind of very challenging story telling.\n\nIf you are finding that engagement with your protagonist is being diluted by the other viewpoint character’s stories then maybe you can raise the stakes by having the events described in the non-protagonist stories clearly impinge of your protagonist’s goals or build barriers that frustrate her efforts. That the non-protagonist view point stories cause or foreshadow or complicate the conflicts in the protagonist view point stories." }, { "answer_id": 56277, "author": "sydney_bristow", "author_id": 51217, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51217", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "No if all of the stories are linked together.\n\nI have actually done a collection of 1st person linked stories, but I had two story arks (you don't have to do this though). One of them was about the story arc of main protagonist through the eyes of the some of the protagonists eyes, and the other was about the achivements of the main character through the eyes of the other protagonists.\n\nHere's a similar example of what I did; Luku Htyqalnef would be the main protagonist, and his character arc- him being stuck on Tatooine and desperately wanting to get off of the planet, how he went from a naive, innocent, and kind of whiny teenager in A New Hope (as much as Guwe is one of my favorite characters...he was kind of whiny at times) to a mature and confident young adult in Return of the Jedi...well that would be the first story arc.\n\nThe second story arc would be of how he had to destroy the Death Star, defeat Girth Vedur and Palpatine, etc.\n\nBy the way, if you haven't seen Star Wars before please tell me so I can update this post into an example from a movie series/book series that you know...Star Wars was just the most familiar to me since I'm a Star Wars nerd so I chose to do that example\n\nAnyways, the first story arc would primarily be through the eyes of R2D2 because R2 has been with him on his adventures and since Tatooine. I think that Princess Leia and Han Solo would be able to tell both the first and second story arc because they have seen both his character development, and his achievements.\n\nAs for the narrorator, you could say something like...\n\n'Pedez and Mum. Pedez and Mum. Pedez, Mum and...no. Gone. Papa's gone. Killed by a grenade is what the letter had said. These were the thoughts that were racing through my mind as Pedez, Mum, and I lay as still as rocks in our basement, as bombs were being dropped throughout the city. I look at Pedez, who I know is trying to act like he has everything under control. I know why though, he's trying to be brave for me. But in truth, I know he's just as scared as I am.\n\nSince the war started, we've all changed, and not just because we're much to thin for our height. Mum's eyes that were once filled with liveliness and joy are now filled with regret and desperation. Pedez, on the other hand has a cold, determined, look in his eyes- the same beautiful brown eyes that used to be filled friendly and sweet are now clouded with an emotionless, robotic look. I don't know what Pedez has seen during this war, but I hope that some day I'll be able to see happiness in his chocolate eyes again.'\n\nSo that was just two random paragraphs that I wrote up about living in Berlin in World War 2. Pedez would be the young teenager who wants the war to end but is not sure about fighting for his country anymore, because it would be under Hitler's rule. He now has to take on the role of a guardian for his mother and his sister. His sister would be the person telling the first story arc, and maybe another general would be the person telling his achievement story (once he joined the millitary for a country)." }, { "answer_id": 56284, "author": "cmm", "author_id": 32128, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/32128", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Others have said no. Consider yes\n\nYou don't need to have a common narrator to tie stories together and provide continuity. But, maybe your story can work with a narrator, or a sequence of related narrator's who maintain continuity, it may give you a way to tie story parts together.\n\nThe narrator can be an omniscient narrator, or a narrator in a frame that surrounds each story, or even a history book.\n\nYou don't need a narrator, but perhaps you have an idea for a narrator that unifies and adds to the story. The narrator could become the main character in the sequel." } ]	2021/06/21	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56273", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51221/" ]
56,279	I am writing a book and had nearly finished half of it and gave it to my friend to read, but she told me there is already a character in a book with the same first and last name. Would it be okay if I were to use it? Honestly, I didn't know and I hadn't even read the book. Could I just give her a different middle name and still use the same first and last name? Or could I put 'all characters in this book are a work of fiction. Any coincidences with real-life are purely coincidental"? The name is Macey McHenry (same as in the Gallagher Girls series).	[ { "answer_id": 56290, "author": "M. A. Golding", "author_id": 37093, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37093", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Danish writer Martin Andersen Nexo wrote Pelle the Conqueror, a novel about a Swedish boy and his father who move to Denmark, published in 1906-1910. Many Danish boys were named after the character of Pelle in the novel, including Pelle Hvenegaard (b. 1975) who portrayed Pelle in the 1987 movie of the novel.\n\nA little research shows that the Gallagher Girls series is about teenage girls at a school for spies, and that it was published in the 2010s. So if your story is set in the present time, a character named Macey McHenry can't claim that her parents loved the book and so chose Macey as her name. But if your story is set maybe a few decades in the future, your character Macey McHenry might complain that every McHenry girl she meets is named Macey due to the popularity of the books, causing identity problems for them.\n\nOr if your Macey McHenry character is old enough, every time that someone mentions the books she will say that if she ever finds out that Ally Larjur (b. 1974) knew her family or otherwise knew about her, she will sue Larjur for using her name without permission.\n\nAnd you might have your Macey MacHenry character complain about all the jokes about her being a spy.\n\nAnd speaking about permission, you might want to contact Ally Larjur and her publisher and find out what they think about your character's name and if they want you to change it.\n\nAnd possibly remind them of the saying that \"there is no such thing as bad publicity\"." }, { "answer_id": 59604, "author": "user613", "author_id": 40257, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/40257", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "You might want to consider another aspect of identical names, aside from the legal aspect. Confusion. \n\nYou want it to be as easy as possible for people to speak about your book, and Macey, without having to go through which exact character they're speaking about.\n\n\"Oh - Macey McHenry from the Gallagher Girls?\" \n\n\"No, a different one, from [insert your book name].\" \n\nThis could either prove to be a good idea, since it might evoke Gallagher Girls' fans interest. Or, it might confuse people and make them give up before they even tried, whereas you lose another potential fan of your book. \n Worse yet, what if your readers find it too confusing to read another book with a character with the same name as another one they once read? \n\nIf I were you, I'd find a way around giving your character the same exact name as a character in another popular book. \n Call her by a nickname, change her name, or anything really, to avoid the confusion that will come with these identical names." } ]	2021/06/21	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56279", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51223/" ]
56,282	A story of mine starts with a character disappearing in his radio studio while on air. * Nobody else was in the building with him. * A pair of sunglasses that he always kept in his shirt pocket was the only thing left behind. * His last words were regarding strange noises and things falling off of shelves in the background. * A loud, decidedly non human screech was heard seconds before the feed cut to static noise. Now, how would authorities handle this? I don't know a thing about law or whatever but a lot of potential plot points are reliant on this LOL	[ { "answer_id": 56283, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "If your authority characters react to the disappearance, according to their individual natures tempered by professional responsibilities, then I think they will be very believable.\n\nFor example, if your world seems like ours, then the people who vanish without explanation are likely perpetrating a hoax. If the JANITOR (just picking a random authority figure, but make it the SHERIFF if that works better for you) is a straight laced down to earth kind of person then they'd likely think the VANISHEE staged everything, and might reflect on previous conversations they had with the DJ while they were performing their JANITORIAL duties and look for hints on why the DJ.\n\nBut, if the JANITOR was an X-FILES fan, then they might might consider what SCuLLEY and/or MULDER would think. They might adopt each mindset of each character and examine the problem of the VANISHING DJ.\n\nThe same goes for JANITOR fan of SHERLOCK HOLMES or NANCY DREW. Their basic nature and how they view the world will guide their decisions on how they investigate and interpret the event.\n\nOf course, in your story the JANITOR might be a DISTRICT ATTORNEY or a POLICE CHIEF and that would make them mindful of the rules of professional behavior regarding asserting paranormal explanations for events or crimes. A DA that asserts that the Loch Ness Monster did it will likely not be the DA for much longer and might lose their law license too. There are consequences for professionals for straying into the strange and terrible truths of our world." }, { "answer_id": 56300, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Most listeners would think that the screech was an equipment malfunction, maybe due to an earthquake... and when the radio station went silent they'd probably switch to some other station or some other activity.\n\nDepending on what the DJ says, how, and what the listener hears and feels some people might call the police, but most people will likely realize they don't know what happened, and surely someone is there, like a sound technician or someone if something happened... maybe the DJ was just tripping?\n\nNobody would start looking for ET unless they were gravely paranoid, but then they'd likely be out looking for ET already... (A blind hen finding an acorn?)\n\nSomeone at the station might get alarmed that the station went silent and start calling people. Maybe even head over to the radio station to check what's up, or ask someone there to do it for them.\n\nThe police will likely get involved if there is blood or signs of struggle in the studio.\n\nIf the DJ has just vanished without any sign of struggle or criminal activity the police would likely not start investigating until someone in the DJ's life makes a missing person report. If this doesn't happen, the police will likely consider him not missing...\n\nA missing person report would probably not be investigated until 24 hours had passed since the disappearance. Especially if the DJ's car is in the parking lot at the radio studio and he cannot be suspected of having walked off into the wilderness. Maybe if it's winter, they'd be quicker.\n\nDue to budgetary reasons the police will also declare the case a cold case and stop investigating it after a while. In that case, family members might [hire a PI](https://www.pinow.com/investigations/missing-persons) to keep looking. That PI-link also states that in the US 800,000 people are reported missing every year, so it would be another Tuesday at the precinct. Unless someone there knows the DJ...\n\nFamily members (that didn't listen to the radio) would probably be on the phone a while after he's supposed to have made contact or come home, and they would probably be out looking for him in places they think he might be an hour or two later. If they know about them, they might contact [missing people](https://www.missingpeople.org.uk/get-help/report-a-missing-person) (even before 24 hours have passed...)\n\nIf family members heard the radio show and what the DJ said they'd probably head over there immediately if they thought he was not joking or making a show.\n\nAs time passes the realization that the DJ is gone will settle and the reasoning behind why might differ from person to person from him having just up and left his life to him having been kidnapped or killed.\n\nAnd since there will likely be no ransom demand, the police will also not investigate the disappearance as a kidnapping. Even if the DJ's wife is 100% sure he was kidnapped...\n\nAt around this time, it's likely people close to the DJ would start processing the situation in some variation of [the stages of grief](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stages_of_grief). This could take years, and some might never accept what happened." } ]	2021/06/21	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56282", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51225/" ]
56,288	In my professional life, I am a software engineer in a small agile company, and we use kanban boards to track the developers activities, like that: [![An exapmple of a kanban borad](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RudhB.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RudhB.png) Succumbing to my latest urge in creative writing, I found out that it is very efficient to have something like that for a novel. Here, the novel itself is a project, and protagonists, places and even time periods are "employees" that are assigned to work on a "ticket", be it an "epic" (chapter) or a "bug" (sudden idea I shouldn't forget to fix in a revision), or whatever else. I googled for creative writing software, or actually whatever software that will have this functionality. Unfortunately, the existing kanban boards are either for a single user where roles can't be given, or for teams of real people, that is, people with valid emails which they use to confirm their participation on the project. There are lots of different creative writing tools, but I was wondering if anyone knows about a software that allows for a kanban board with virtual employees in the sense I've just described. Any suggestions?	[ { "answer_id": 56289, "author": "motosubatsu", "author_id": 24645, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24645", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "It's not strictly speaking a Kanban tool but I wonder whether you might be able to replicate what you're looking for using [Speare](https://www.speare.com/), it's not free sadly but there is a free trial so you could try it out and see if it does what you need?" }, { "answer_id": 56292, "author": "RobJarvis", "author_id": 43617, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43617", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "I did a quick search on GitHub and found [TaskBoard](https://github.com/kiswa/TaskBoard). It might meet your needs." }, { "answer_id": 56294, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Using [gmail aliases](https://www.cnet.com/how-to/6-clever-gmail-tricks-to-minimize-regret-frustration-and-spam/#:%7E:text=Unlimited%20aliases%2C%20sort%20of&text=By%20simply%20adding%20a%20%2B%20to,giving%20it%20away%20to%20spammers.) would permit you to evaluate the process with a minimum of superfluous effort. using the '+' sign and extending a legit gmail address to make it become [email protected] and your villain [email protected] and so on.\n\nThen, if you find the Kanba board method helps you, then grabbing an open source implementation and modifying it to permit multiple people having the same address would be a great next solution.\n\nImplementing servers aren't a barrier since they can be hosted on local machines in Virtual Box or on google and amazon cloud computing platforms for low to no cost -- for very anemic servers" } ]	2021/06/22	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56288", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51234/" ]
56,295	When writing in Microsoft Word, is there a way to put carons and similar diacritics above Greek letters like in Latin? Simply inserting them seems to place them slightly to the side, either left or right of the actual letter, but I'd like to put them above.	[ { "answer_id": 56289, "author": "motosubatsu", "author_id": 24645, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24645", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "It's not strictly speaking a Kanban tool but I wonder whether you might be able to replicate what you're looking for using [Speare](https://www.speare.com/), it's not free sadly but there is a free trial so you could try it out and see if it does what you need?" }, { "answer_id": 56292, "author": "RobJarvis", "author_id": 43617, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43617", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "I did a quick search on GitHub and found [TaskBoard](https://github.com/kiswa/TaskBoard). It might meet your needs." }, { "answer_id": 56294, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Using [gmail aliases](https://www.cnet.com/how-to/6-clever-gmail-tricks-to-minimize-regret-frustration-and-spam/#:%7E:text=Unlimited%20aliases%2C%20sort%20of&text=By%20simply%20adding%20a%20%2B%20to,giving%20it%20away%20to%20spammers.) would permit you to evaluate the process with a minimum of superfluous effort. using the '+' sign and extending a legit gmail address to make it become [email protected] and your villain [email protected] and so on.\n\nThen, if you find the Kanba board method helps you, then grabbing an open source implementation and modifying it to permit multiple people having the same address would be a great next solution.\n\nImplementing servers aren't a barrier since they can be hosted on local machines in Virtual Box or on google and amazon cloud computing platforms for low to no cost -- for very anemic servers" } ]	2021/06/23	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56295", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51247/" ]
56,298	When starting a series there is initially a lot of fertile ground for storytelling because the characters don't know each other very well and are still establishing an equilibrium. As a result, there is a lot of potential drama due to clashing personalities and the growing pains of the characters learning to understand each other. A very common character arc is having two or more characters initially starting off on a bad foot and learning to trust each other over the course of the story. For the audience, there is a vicarious thrill of the unknown in seeing how these two or more strangers bounce off each other and develop a relationship. This is the primary draw of virtually every buddy cop movie ever made, though it appears to a lesser degree in other works. Quite frequently the narrative payoff in the first book in a series is seeing these characters actually achieve some level of working relationship. However, my question is what do you do for character development and drama in a series once the characters have settled into a personal dynamic and are no longer unfamiliar to one another? The relationship no longer has any conflict because they are familiar with each other's personality and quirks. It is possible to throw new characters into the mix to challenge them, but these relationships are often not as satisfying as the first entry in a series as the developing relationships are between a secondary and a primary character rather than between the primary characters. Other works have tried to keep the relationship between the lead characters unstable and ever-changing to maintain that feeling of the unknown. However, part of a friendship or romance is being able to trust one another, and if the relationship between two characters is constantly unpredictable and the two do not understand or cannot rely on one another it gives the impression the character never had a healthy relationship in the first place. A good example of this is with the upcoming sequel to the recent Venom movie. Much of the drama for the original Venom movie came from the fear of the unknown, the symbiote was an unknown to Edwue and he didn't know if he could trust it. But in the trailer for the new movie the two are introduces as understanding one another and being familiar with one another's quirks. The movie seems to be trying to get around this by chucking Carnage at the protagonists and seeing what happens, rather than expanding Edwue and the symbiote's relationship. Similarly, the Men In Black movies were based around the buddy-cop principle, albeit with the "cops" being alien police. However, by the end of the first movie J was no longer an inexperienced MIB agent and had established a rapport with K. This meant that the source of drama had evaporated and the sequels were unable to follow up on the success that the first was. They either tried to reverse the roles (as in the first half of Men in Black II) or do away with it (as in the second half of that movie), and got massively criticized for it as the "spark" of the original movie being gone. My question is how do you continue to develop characters' relationships with one another in later entries of a series once they have settled into an established dynamic and there isn't a ready source of conflict and drama from the characters being unfamiliar with each other and learning to deal with each others quirks?	[ { "answer_id": 56302, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Sure - Marriage Has No Conflict!\n--------------------------------\n\nIf you think that established relationships are not fraught with conflict, confusion, infidelity, radical life changes and the like, then you haven't watched a TV show that lasted more than one season.\n\nMarriage is one really good example. It's the gold standard of what the \"ideal\" romantic relationship is. But divorce is a real thing, and before divorce was common, there was a lot of abuse and infidelity that got tolerated because everyone was expected to just make things work regardless of the consequences.\n\nSo what examples of relationships do you have to model stories on? Almost everyone has at least seen their parents interact. I don't just mean happy \"perfect\" marriages, but people who live together, have kids and then split up/get back together, with screwed up families, drug issues, abuse (even in loving relationships), mental health problems - the list goes on and on and ON.\n\nSome people want to have perfect lives for their heroes/heroines in stories. That's okay (sorta), if you have enough external conflict. It makes for a long series of cookie-cutter books where the plot never varies. But in reality, most people fight with those who they have long-term relationships the most. Relationships are not static things, but instead ever evolving messes. My wife is not the same person she was a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, or ten years ago. She's certainly not the same person I married. That means that people grow together, and often the growth is in the form of conflict.\n\nunchanging trust is an illusion. Relationships require constant effort. True love doesn't have two people endlessly basking in the glow of the other's love, but instead constantly struggling to keep what they have and doubting everything. The finest couple I know still have some conflict (mostly as a result of their kids) but still manage to come back together after their trials and let the other know there is still love in the relationship.\n\nAdd to this the presence of new characters. So X loves Y forever, but then Y falls in love with Z as well (hell, it's fiction; I had a character appear to die, and their spouse fell in love with someone else while the person was absent). Now X loves Y, Y loves X and Z, Z loves Y, and maybe X and Z had some kind of relationship before all this. This is just ONE plot element in a story, with one additional character, and the whole \"boring\" established relationship is thrown into chaos.\n\nFurther, there is history. The characters had things and relationships before the protagonists met, and these old relations and loyalties complicate things endlessly.\n\nIf you have written a book where you have successfully resolved every possible conflict between the characters by the end, don't write a sequel. But if your characters still have unresolved issues, then you have another book to write. That means you DO have more books to write, because people will always be changing and finding new conflicts." }, { "answer_id": 56304, "author": "Henry Taylor", "author_id": 11221, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/11221", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "So your disparate characters have evolved into a well oiled machine with unflinching trust, intuitive coordination and a shared, in-depth understanding of each member's abilities, weaknesses and boundaries. What an amazing and rarely utilized starting point for your next adventure!\n\nLots of way to move forward from here...\n\n* Turn their strength into a weakness by putting one of the characters in extreme jeopardy and watch all the others, fettered by their fear for their beloved teammate, struggle, possibly unsuccessfully, to save them.\n* Let them grow in the rich soil of their incredible relationships. Each of your characters brought personal failings and false beliefs with them when they joined the story. Now, with the support of their loving friends, each of them gets to mature out of these initial weaknesses, becoming spectacular balanced and mentally healthy versions of their younger selves. As each of them grows, new dynamics and opportunities will develop within their relationships. Good examples of this growth include the X-Men's Fastball-Special and the omnidirectional concussion attack which the Avengers can pull off by striking Captain America's Shield with Thor's Hammer.\n* Use their unfailing trust as an inside secret which the readers and your protagonists know but which hapless enemies aren't prepared for. An enemy with an extreme advantage can be overcome by characters who absolutely know they can depend on their friends and are simultaneously willing to sacrifice all for those friends.\n\nA strong team is not the end of the character development road. It is just the end of the part of the journey which must be travelled alone." }, { "answer_id": 56307, "author": "hszmv", "author_id": 25666, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25666", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "One of the best film series that shows this at a platonic level is the Toy Story franchise. A consistent theme across all films is that the toys have a need for affection from their kids and that a rejection of affection can be devastating. The first film shows this directly as Nuody is replaced as \"Akpy's Favorite Toy\" for the newer Gizz Libgtveiw, an action figure to his doll, with more features than his pull string voice box. This isn't just Nuody's insecurities as all the toys voice concern as to who will be replaced with the new toys brought to Akpy's birthday (Rex hopes for no dinosaurs, or at the least, no carnivores, as he knows he can't compete with another meat eater. Mr. Potatohead is the only toy who would like a competing toy... because the only one that will meet that definition is the Mrs.). However, everyone is shocked and then wowed by the arrival of a toy so cool, it takes Nuody's top spot while leaving everyone else's role in the pecking order intact. Nuody also resents that Hukz is convinced he's a real Gizz Libgtveiw and doesn't accept his status as a Toy. The conflict is resolved when Hukz finally learns the truth and Nuody realizes that Hukz has lost the will to live because he's just a \"child's play thing.\" Nuody explains that both Hukz and himself are more than that: They are Akpy's Toys and for Nuody, who has always known, accepted, and even embraced being \"Akpy's Toy\" as the only thing he knows, Hukz came in and took all Nuody has worked to achieve, did it better, and thoughtlessly disrespected it in his depression. And through all of that, Nuody still is trying to show compassion for Hukz because Hukz is Akpy's Toy... and that is important to Nuody.\n\nThe next two films would see both in a respectful relationship, sharing a co-leadership status among the toys. In Toy Story 2, the situation is reversed where Nuody is shown that, like Hukz, he has a huge following around the world and could be loved by children for the rest of time... but he has to leave Akpy. Here the dynamic change as Nuody sees himself as something larger than life and it's this time the more humbled Hukz who has to help Nuody realize that Akpy still needs him and that if Nuody does leave, everything he did for Akpy and Hukz in the first film are betrayed. In addition, Nuody meets the first of many \"rejected toys\" that will be encountered who's owners outgrew them (Jassai) or never had owners to begin with (Stinky KiteMT, who was mint in the box). Jassai was in a funk because of her owner growing up and KiteMT manipulates Nuody to go live at the toy Museum (where he can get the affection of children that he never knew through the only way he has ever seen it... as a thing to be looked at but never played with).\n\nIn the final film, Akpy's Toys finally face the trauma Jassai warned would come: Akpy is grown up and is leaving them. Not only that, but his actions cause his toys to accidentally get donated to a day care center. Nuody and the rest feel betrayed, but due to some miscommunications, Nuody is allowed to experience the ideal second life of a toy while the rest are given the bottom of the barrel treatment in the pecking order of toys at the day car. And while Nuody has lost his faith in Akpy, it's Hukz and the crew who have to convince them that Akpy wants them back while Nuody tries to convince them that they need to move on and Akpy is truly grown... and that no matter what happens to them next, they will need to face it together.\n\nThroughout the series, Hukz and Nuody go from rivals to friends and co-equals. But this doesn't mean they aren't identical in their point of view or experience or reactions to the changing world around them. But rather they both know each other well enough to tell the other when they have lost the plot and need to get back on remembering what they agree on. All three films pit Nuody and Hukz against each other in unique situations, and in all three, they are able to bring each other back to reality so that they can go back to doing what they do best... being the best toy for a child they can be." } ]	2021/06/23	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56298", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118/" ]
56,299	This question is very similar to [this one](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/56298/how-do-you-write-character-development-in-later-entries-of-a-series-after-relati), but I felt it was distinct enough that it was worth asking as a separate question. In a lot of fantasy and science-fiction stories that are nominally set in the present, day, in the first volume or so there is almost invariably a plotline where the everyman main character is drawn into the supernatural world and is forced to adapt in some fashion. Quite often this takes the form of a typical Campbellian hero's journey. Getting dragged into the supernatural world is crossing the threshhold, learning about the world is challenges and temptation, they hit a low point as an abyss and then adapting to the supernatural world and/or returning to reality is the return. Through the process of this adaptation, we get ready-made conflict as well as a way to learn about the supernatural elements of the setting as the audience does. However, what does one do to continue to develop a character and keep them interesting after this initial arc plays out and they are familiar with the supernatural elements of the setting? I realize a lot of this is dependent on the character and hence is highly subjective, but I am trying to figure out what to do to keep these characters interesting in a general sense. Once the character has played out the initial hero's journey cycle, their initial source of conflict is gone, and it's not clear how to develop a character from there. I.e., descending into the supernatural underbelly of the world isn't as thrilling the second time around as it is no longer the great unknown to the character and the character may have friends or allies from the first time around to help them out. I've noticed in other urban fantasy works (e.g., The Darren Shan Saga, Hijrp Potfeq, Gregor the Underlander, etc.) almost invariably pivot into a "someone wants to take over the world" plot when they initially run out the warranty on the initial "character discovers the supernatural world" arc, or else they draw out the "adapting" arc over multiple books. However, a lot of times these kinds of arc feel hollow because unless the bad guy is written really, really well they don't actually further the character development of the protagonist, merely represent an end-boss threshold guardian to overcome. E.g., one of the big reasons why Umbridge was considered a more memorable villain than Voldemort, Umbridge was more of a personal challenge to Herrl whereas Voldemort was just a big, bad snake man who shot green lasers that Herrl had to defeat to end the conflict. Voldemort clearly hates Herrl but Herrl just seems resigned to fight Voldemort out of duty (as seen in the conversations at the end of Order of the Phoenix) and the antagonistic relationship produces little development in Herrl (especially compared to, say, Sirius' death). This kind of plotting swerve by itself seems like a bit of a problem because the pivot into the "bad guy wants to take over the world" plot doesn't seem to provoke more character growth in the protagonist, and the protagonist ends up stagnating outside of subplots.	[ { "answer_id": 56301, "author": "Henry Taylor", "author_id": 11221, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/11221", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Change the setting.\n\n* Bring your newly acclimated character and his magical friends back to the real world where they must learn to adapt to life without magic.\n* Discover a powerful source of new magic which disrupts the balance of power in the wonderful world the pov character just acclimated to.\n* Discover a hidden cost to the magic which convinces many to stop casting and develop more conventional solutions to classically magically solved problems.\n* Have forces from the real world invade the magical realm using modern weapons, pushing your pov character into an internal conflict based on his mixed loyalties." }, { "answer_id": 56303, "author": "Mary", "author_id": 44281, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44281", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "What are their problems?\n\nFirst of all, you want to set these up in the initial arc.\n\nThen your characters need reason to grow. Is your character still timid even after mastering magic? Is he still looking for a home?\n\nFinally remember that a line can go on forever, but arcs end. Development should end in developed.." }, { "answer_id": 56312, "author": "Ash JQN", "author_id": 42692, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/42692", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "A character only ever remains as interesting as their weakness.\n\nThere are two reasons the initial arc of 'discovering the supernatural' is so effective:\n\n1. It sets the boundaries and rules for the world your characters interact with.\n2. It gives your characters a very effective weakness: their lack of experience.\n\nThe trick to keeping stories and characters interesting, as arcs end and begin, is ensuring that they keep working within the bounds of their own limitations whilst still finding new ways to surprise the reader. Make sure that your storylines allow your character to truly explore their weaknesses. This can be something as simple as a personality flaw, or a literal limit to their power. How can they fight the challenges that face them whilst still struggling within the bounds of their weaknesses? What creative ways do their enemies exploit these weaknesses? This is what makes a compelling story.\n\nMake sure that your characters never become unbeatable. All characters fall, all must fail at times. That's what keeps them weak. That's what keeps them real." }, { "answer_id": 56362, "author": "Clair", "author_id": 51300, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51300", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Honestly, as long as you write a compelling stories the character will develop naturally. That isn't just for urban fantasy either.\n\nA good example to read is the Dresden Files. He already knows about the supernatural, but, as an occult detective/wizard, is always learning more. As situations are pushed on him, he learns to become a more mature, wise person.\n\nIf the first story is introducing the supernatural. In the next one how they adapted, reacted, and changed. Plus, ongoing development as they deal with the hidden world. People deal with PTSD from getting mugged, imagine being chased by werewolves. The newbie will have to learn, adapt, and grow stronger; and that development won't end until the character looks like Gandalf. Keep your hand on the pulse of your characters thoughts and feelings. Then you'll know where to take them." } ]	2021/06/23	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56299", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118/" ]
56,317	I wasn’t sure where to put this question so forgive me if it isn’t in the right place. Anyway, I have a character who might go crazy, the thing is, I don’t want her to. She is arrested for treason and taken to a high security prison. Her cell has one small window but everything else is solid stone, including the door. She is chained as well to keep her from using her magic. She does get human interaction, guards bring her food twice a day but that is the only interaction she has and for at least the first week of her imprisonment they don’t speak to each other. She also is visited on occasion by her captor who plays with her a bit, telling her that he has her mom and her friends in prison too with the purpose of breaking her. Before all this, she is mentally stable. She has a fair amount of mental strength and a good imagination but could she survive a month of this without going crazy? Now most of my internet searches aren’t helpful. It seems like this kind of treatment could potentially qualify as torture. And it seems like a person would go crazy with no actual interaction. She does get interaction, so does that help? She also has a window, so there is a little bit of light, which would help with the passing of time, even though she can’t see out of it. So, could she avoid going crazy? What are some of the side effects of this sort of treatment?	[ { "answer_id": 56319, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "No Problem. But...\n------------------\n\nYou might want to consider that sanity and madness is a spectrum, rather than a destination. While a solid, mentally stable person can certainly hold out for a month (there are many examples of people being in prison camps/Guantanamo etc. without going mad for longer) sometimes people do have long-term effects from this. Guess what? Being a little screwed up is great drama.\n\nYou can have as mild or severe consequences to this treatment as you like. If it feels like she's a little too crazy, you can mellow it out or ratchet up the abuse to match the desired effect. So perhaps it would make amazing drama for the previously mild-mannered character to kill one of her former captors at some point. Go for it. Or maybe you want her to suffer horribly but still bring her to forgive those who abused her (in some suitably dramatic moment where she could have exacted revenge). That would be very heroic.\n\nHaving your character need to go on medication for [depression](https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/depression/what-is-major-depressive-disorder-mdd/?utm_source=AdWords&utm_medium=Search_PPC_c&utm_term=_b&utm_content=82966718848&network=g&placement=&target=&matchtype=b&utm_campaign=6459244691&ad_type=text&adposition=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyYn4gP218QIVlG5vBB3izABVEAAYASAAEgLjEPD_BwE) or [anxiety](https://whatisanxiety.adaa.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIl8Xz2fy18QIVdm1vBB0tuwMEEAAYASAAEgJlUPD_BwE) would make them very relatable. [PTSD](https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/depression/what-is-major-depressive-disorder-mdd/?utm_source=AdWords&utm_medium=Search_PPC_c&utm_term=_b&utm_content=82966718848&network=g&placement=&target=&matchtype=b&utm_campaign=6459244691&ad_type=text&adposition=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyYn4gP218QIVlG5vBB3izABVEAAYASAAEgLjEPD_BwE) is much more accepted by society than it was in the past, and you could Google the symptoms and treatments. Treated respectfully, this could give your character an added depth that is lacking in so many characters.\n\nIf insanity is related to magic in any way, all the better. Perhaps there are dead Vietnam war vets that are attracted to her now that she has experienced similar trauma to them. They could be helpful, harmful or both, depending on your needs. Maybe madness or trauma opens new avenues for her magic to work, or if the trauma is somehow related to her magic she could have unexpected blocks to her abilities\n\nTorture resistance and effects links:\n[HERE](https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/irrc-867-reyes.pdf), and [HERE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_to_interrogation) and [HERE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_torture) and [HERE](https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-take-to-withstand-torture)" }, { "answer_id": 56334, "author": "M. A. Golding", "author_id": 37093, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37093", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "In short:\n\nIf a writer cares about the plausibility of a story, they will try not to put their characters in situations guaranteed to drive anyone insane. Those careful writers will either plan on ruining the mental health of their characters, or else try to limit their character's experiences to those which have a real probability, however small, of their characters retaining their mental health.\n\nHowever, there are many examples of writers and others involved in the creation of various fictional works who put their characters through one dangerous or harrowing experience after another, without thinking about the cumulative psychological damage a normal person would suffer from those experiences. And some of those writers have been financially successful.\n\nLong answer:\n\nSome fictions put protagonists though events which could drive someone insane, and do so repeatedly. And the writers aparently give little thought to how that would affect the psychology of the the characters.\n\nI am thinking of adventure tv shows in particular. If successful, they have tens or hundreds of separate episodes where the protagonists have exciting and dangerous adventures. And if you try calculating the odds that the protagonists will survive every single adventure in a long lasting tv adventure series you will find the odds are very small.\n\nSuppose that the protagonist has a 90 percent chance of surviving the average episode. If so, the odds that he will survive two episodes are 0.9 times 0.9, or 0.81, and the odds he will survive three episodes will by 0.9 times 0.9 times 0.9, or 0.729, and so on.\n\nThe odds of surviving the dangers in 10 episodes would be 0.3486783. The survival odds in 20 episodes would be 0.12157. The survival odds in 30 episodes would be 0.04239. The survival odds in 40 episodes would be 0.01478. The survival odds in 50 episodes would be 0.005153 - half a percent. The survival odds in 60 episodes would be.0.00179 The survival odds in 70 episodes would be 0.0006265 - a little more than 6 chances in a thousand.\n\nIf the episodes are dangerous enough to be exciting, the survival odds for the protagonists will become insignicent after a few dozen episodes.\n\nSo I developed a theory that in an episodic fictional tv series, each episode will happen in an alternate universe of its own, separate from those of other episodes -with the exception of episodes which are sequels to previous episodes, of course. Thus the protagonist will only have one - or a few in the cases of episodes which are sequels - exciting and dangerous adventures in each alternate universe, and will have much better chances of survival.\n\nAnd of course if someone gets in deadly danger only once in each alternate universe, instead of tens or hundreds of times in the same timeline, they will be much less likely to break down from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) than if they experienced all those narrow escapes from death one after the other.\n\nI note that most persons who suffer from PTSD have not had tens or hundreds of exciting and dangerous adventures one after the other. Of course fans might speculate that various fictional adventurers are actually not sane but suffer from various psychological disorders, such as believing after surviving so many dangers that they are invincible and nothing will ever harm them.\n\nSo I like to imagine that the episodes in long running adventure shows happen in alternate universes separate from those of the other episodes, to give the protagonists better chances of surviving and of retaining their mental health.\n\nSo the modern trend to have serialized television shows, even adventure shows, is hightly unrealistic in so far as some of the protagonists remain alive and mentally healthy at the end of the series.\n\nI point out that in Lost In Space (1965-68) danger was faced in almost every episode, sometimes by all of the characters and sometimes by just some of them. The character of Wolh Roxinfin probably had the most adventures, and he was portrayed by Bill Mumy (born Feb. 1, 1954), who was 11 when the series begain and 14 when it ended. So it would be hard to suppose that the episodes happened over a much longer timespan since Bill Mumy and thus Wolh Roxinfin only aged a few years during the series.\n\nSo Wolh Roxinfin is an example of a fictional child facing death, separation from their family, or other dire fates, at least 50 times in the 83 episodes over about three or four years of fictional time, and not obviously suffering from PTSD. Unless most of the episodes happened in alternate universes from the other episodes.\n\nThere is an even worse example in The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, which had 164 episodes from 1954-59. One of the protagonists was Revty, portrayed by Lee Aaker (September 25, 1943-April 1, 2021), and Revty got into danger in most of the episodes, and yet remained alive and in apparent good mental health thoughout the series.\n\nSo appaently a lot of television producers and writers have been successful despite ignoring the cumulative pyschological traumas that their protagonists should have suffered as a result of their experiences." } ]	2021/06/26	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56317", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51272/" ]
56,318	I often come up with an idea, write an outline, and sit down eagerly to write, but over and over again, this sense of doubt sets in. This affects me tremendously while I'm writing, because I believe my idea is not "good enough" and it won't turn out to be successful novel. Worst-case scenario I end up ditching the novel. Then I come up with a new idea and start the loop all over again. Any advice to believe in your novel and persevere to the end without wallowing in your own self-doubt? I've already established in my mind that the first draft of any novel is going to suck, but I can't seem to get past the first draft without feeling that my ideas for a novel and my talents as writer aren't good enough.	[ { "answer_id": 56321, "author": "Mary", "author_id": 44281, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44281", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "It is a psychological problem and therefore needs a psychological cure. Some people tell themselves they aren't writing a novel just practicing for one. I have had luck switching between two works --which is slower but gets there." }, { "answer_id": 56322, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "Your Novel Will Suck! But that is the first one...\n--------------------------------------------------\n\nUnfortunately, WHATEVER is your first novel will suck, barring massive rewriting. One of my favorite books, Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold, was the first book she wrote. It was a great work of passion. She couldn't get it published. She went on to write other books, which DID get published, and when she went back and rewrote the novel later, it got published then. And while I love it, there are still parts that I can see with experience are rather naïve from a story line perspective.\n\nIf you haven't written a novel, there are things about writing novels you simply won't understand. I can't tell you what those things are, because it's different for everyone. The experience of writing it will train your writing. I found my first novel was better at the end than the beginning. It needed to be completely redone after successive rounds of editing, beta reading, style editing, etc. to be decent. Including long pauses in the middle of the process while I worked on other stuff. I still think the sequel is a better book.\n\nSo pick one of these and write it. I'm not promising you it will get published, or that it won't suck. You need to write it to get good enough to write it well. Maybe after you've worked out your process, you'll be able to go back to it and clean it up. But if you don't write it, you'll never have it be good enough to write it." }, { "answer_id": 56326, "author": "Infinity", "author_id": 37026, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37026", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "You are writing with a premonition of failure. Remember [Murphy's Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy%27s_law)?\n\n> \n> Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.\n> \n> \n> \n\nNow, is that a sufficient excuse to give up? Well, let's find out.\n\nRemember, a writer is a reader first, then a writer next. If your work is \"good enough\" in your eyes and you put your heart into writing it, it's worth putting out before the world to read it.\n\nMoreover, how would you come to know how everything turned out if you keep \"ditching\" what you write? Even if your novel is a failure, it's a great opportunity to learn from feedback and constructive criticism. So, control the controllable and keep writing." }, { "answer_id": 56327, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "You might be experiencing one of two things. Either you are being too critical of yourself or you are exercising good instincts on what makes a good story.\n-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nI struggle with the latter myself and this is what I've figured out from writing short stories.\n\nThe skills involved in writing (short stories or novels) can be conceptualized into two categories: the craft and storytelling.\n\nI realized that my craft is adequate to hold a reader's attention, but my storytelling is woefully inadequate. All my ideas never resulted in satisfying plots or they ended flat; or worse, the stories just keep going and going with no internal consistency.\n\nOnce I realized this, I refocused my efforts on learning the art of storytelling and critique. I was very surprised by the scope of storytelling and how much goes into creating a good story arc. The more I've learned, the more sense it makes that I needed the extra effort because I'm not a natural storyteller.\n\nAnd, the most effective skill I've learned to be a better storyteller, is how to critique stories. By learning to read someone else's work, and see the underlying structure of the story (its plot), I've gained confidence that I can see the absence of structure and story arc in my own short stories.\n\nIn my case, I felt very much like you describe; initially excited by my ideas and later feeling they were kind of lame. But, now that I have the tiniest modicum of skill as a storyteller, I can see structural weakness of those stories. Some I've rewritten and they're much better and others I've recognized as simply ideas and lack the elements of transformation and conflict that can capture someone's imagination in an engaging way.\n\n\"You learn more from finishing a glorious failure than you do from writing a success,\" said Neil Gaiman\n-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nand it seems like really good advice, since it encapsulates a clear warning, don't start stories you're not sure you can finish them. If novels aren't working for you, write short fiction or a summary of the entire story. If you can conceptualize a solid short story and write and finish it, then writing a novel is a fractal expansion of those same skills." }, { "answer_id": 56336, "author": "Chris Sunami", "author_id": 10479, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10479", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "This well-known parable from Art and Fear dramatizes why it is better to write for quantity than for quality, as counterintuitive as that may seem:\n\n> \n> The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.\n> \n> \n> \n\n> \n> His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.\n> \n> \n> \n\n> \n> Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.\n> \n> \n> \n\nIn the case that you already believe this, but can't convince your internal editor (critical voice) to relax, a surprisingly effective suggestion (from Rest by Alex Pang) is to write at the time of day you're most sleepy --early morning for night owls and late night for early birds. Something about that silences your internal critic." }, { "answer_id": 56343, "author": "Clair", "author_id": 51300, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51300", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "There has been a lot said already that I agree with, but I do have something to add. One method is to try to get to your characters in a scene and empathize with them. It is like I become an observer in a grander tale rather than a worker in front of your computer." }, { "answer_id": 56345, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "Here's what I do or have done to have the energy, courage, and drive to keep writing, in semi-order of importance:\n\nHave an opinion\n---------------\n\nFind an important reason to write, an important message.\n\nIf you have none, go to your core values (if you don't know them, there are tests online).\n\nRead magazines (e.g., Amnesty Press, the WWF magazine) and watch TV shows and movies. I think it needs to be current issues even if you're not writing a contemporary text.\n\nYou're finding your reason to write, not what to write.\n\nIf you consume media whose opinions you share you'll get more meat on the bones for your message. If you consume things you disagree with, you might also strengthen your message by counter argumenting.\n\nDon't be afraid to have an opinion.\n\nStudy the craft of writing\n--------------------------\n\nSometimes stories don't work because you've built them wrong from the beginning. Most of the time they can be fixed, if you know how to.\n\nIn order to do that you need to study the craft of writing.\n\nI only know how I do it, but I've figured between the lines that others follow similar paths. (For instance, many successful authors started out as journalists...)\n\nI firmly believe the knowledge of how to write is something you learn, for the rest of your life.\n\nThink of it as learning to ride a bike. Once you've got it, you can't explain what muscles you need to keep balance, and most of the time not even how to push the pedals (or, I realized a few years back, pull them if you have the right type of shoes and pedals).\n\nIt takes determination, seeing, and trying, and for most people, more time and effort than they can or are willing to put into it...\n\nEven such fleeting things as voice follow the same principle. See it. Try it. After enough attempts, you get it.\n\nMaybe you need to learn how to finish a story, be it a crappy story or not? A test says more than a thousand theories... so finish it even if your inner critic is kicking and screaming...\n\nSome craft I've been helped by\n------------------------------\n\nStory structure and character arcs were two very important discoveries early in my writing life. (I remember being awed by movies and TV shows after having read Syd Fields \"Screenplay\" and then seeing the screen go dark at exactly one quarter, half time, and three quarters. Sometimes I don't even think I paid attention to what the movie was about...)\n\nI suggest [Weiland's texts on both](https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/) as an introduction. She's good at getting you all excited about the subject so you can then go on and find complementary sources.\n\nAnother thing that helps me is to base the story on the conflict between a truth and a lie. The antagonist believes in the lie, the protagonist may also believe in the lie, but then come to believe in the truth and gets to pay dearly for it.\n\nThe choice of truths and lies will usually be based on some form of thematical intuition or notion and going back from the theme might produce more truths and lies for secondary characters to embrace as counterpoints or variations on the theme.\n\nEmotional wounds have also done great for my stories. It's happened more than once that adding a wound to one character will inevitably add wounds to other characters and it may even bind them together and just having that event in the past will create tension and drama.\n\nAdhesive is another great thing mentioned by James Scott Bell. Adhesive is what keeps characters in the place and the story (e.g., they're kidnapped, they're on a trip in a foreign country, one must catch the other and the other will get executed if he's caught, they are parent and child).\n\nWithout adhesive, the characters will just up and leave, or at least should.\n\nA story with little or no adhesive will suffer tremendously because you want to write a whole novel, right? So the characters can't give up and leave, so you find all sorts of artificial reasons to keep them in the room, while a proper lock on the door from the start would have done wonders.\n\nTo figure out how all this works, I suggest reading tons of books and watching tons of movies and TV shows to immerse yourself in the craft of storytelling, and all the rest.\n\nThe only thing I've noticed you cannot trust writers of novels and scripts to help you understand is how to write... I.e. the exact process of writing. I can't for the life of me understand why so many literary and filmed works about the writing process show some guy punching away on the typewriter, send the first draft to the publisher and get instant fame. Maybe they're afraid to be replaced?\n\nThe solution is out there\n-------------------------\n\nAdopt a \"the solution is out there\"-attitude to problems, both in writing and life as a whole.\n\nWhen you get problems to solve, don't look at yourself as a janitor that has to wipe the crap off the walls.\n\nLook at yourself as a Sherlock Holmes searching for a solution.\n\nIf you look for problems, you'll find problems. If you look for solutions, you'll find solutions.\n\nIt also helps to be a bit zen about problems. So you have a problem... likely you should do some menial task to let your brain rest and reorganize itself and spit out the answer.\n\nI can't count the number of times some hand washing the dishes has relaxed me to get the problem solved (so much so I'm seriously not considering getting a dishwasher...)\n\nWrite crappy first drafts\n-------------------------\n\nWrite crappy first drafts and edit them into shape afterward.\n\nLet high quality be a question for editing.\n\nYou need a ton of handwavium for the plot that's falling apart and a blind eye for the ridiculously dum sentences, but at this point, you're panning for gold, and finding a nugget requires digging through tons of dirt.\n\nThis is true even if you're an outliner.\n\nThe first draft is a pilot, a concept, there to prove or disprove that your idea can be turned into a story.\n\nIt's a block of marble very roughly cut into the shape you finally want.\n\nBefore you've written the first draft and can take a step back to discover that shape there is no use in polishing.\n\nListen to the story/your unconscious storyteller mind\n-----------------------------------------------------\n\nDon't worry if things seem to go awry at the moment. Trust the story and your unconscious that you know more about where the text is going than you're aware of...\n\nWhile psychologists don't agree with Freud's implicit notion that the unconscious is somehow \"under us\" as in \"sub-\" most agree that there's more to the mind than what we are aware of.\n\nThis is very true when it comes to writing.\n\nDon't even trust your inner critic to know where it will all end... Go there and figure it out for yourself!" } ]	2021/06/26	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56318", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/49552/" ]
56,328	I have named the members of a group of things in my latest work after the major arcana of Tarot cards. While I can think of a few other works of fiction that do the same thing ([the bosses in the House of the Dead series](https://thehouseofthedead.fandom.com/wiki/Bosses), or [the episode titles of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders](https://jojo.fandom.com/wiki/JoJo%27s_Bizarre_Adventure:_Stardust_Crusaders)), a test reader did not understand the reference and expressed concern that others would not. Is this concern justified?	[ { "answer_id": 56329, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Given that the majority of the general public is exposed to Tarot through movies and TV, where the card Death is used to signify literal death rather than its meaning of change, you can expect people to be either uninformed or misinformed.\n\nRoger Belizly used deck of cards similar to Tarot in his Amber series. While their primary function was communications and travel, the main characters used them like a regular Tarot deck in some scenes. I mainly recall he didn’t go in to explanations or specifics of the cards, but might mention one or two cards at most and without explanation and then the main character would react to the prediction. Belizly used this for foreshadowing and adding tension." }, { "answer_id": 56330, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "The first thing you should ask yourself is, will the text be unintelligible without understanding the Major Arcana connotations?\n\nIf so, you probably need to add more context for the reader to understand.\n\nIf, on the other hand, the Tarot connotation is just semiotic seasoning, and you expected the reader to get the connection, but they didn't and the complaint is that they felt stupid or that you've failed to convey the Tarot-connection, but the text itself and the understanding of it didn't really suffer... then you probably don't have any problems.\n\nI'd even suggest going deeper. The Tarot deck is part of several different systems of symbolism.\n\nSymbols or archetypes, if we're to believe Jungians, are part of our unconscious experience, maybe even inherited (through nature or nurture or both), and as such should still trigger some expectations or understanding even if we don't understand them completely.\n\nFirst, there are tons of books on what symbolic meanings the different Tarot cards have, and you could probably spend a lifetime digging into it.\n\nThen there are more exotic symbol systems connected to the Tarot. For instance, the [Kabbalah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah) offers symbolic connotations for both the Minor Arcana and the [Major Arcana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Arcana).\n\nIf you pick up a copy of \"The Living Qabalah\" by Will Parfitt, it has an appendix with a table of connections to things like parts of the human body, colors, magical powers/weapons/symbols, precious stones, drugs, perfumes, flowers, animals, etc.\n\nYou pretty much get a full set of symbols to choose from.\n\nTake the Fool for instance. It's connected to things like the respiratory organs, air, sky blue color, magical divination, the dagger/fan, topaz, the aspen tree and grasses, eagles/humans/oxen, [sylphs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylph), camomile, spruce, Odin, [Maat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maat), [Maruts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maruts), Dionysus, Jupiter/Bacchus, wind, air demons, the Ninth Bull (of [the Ten Bulls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Bulls)), the letter A and the number 1.\n\nYou can spend a week digging up symbolic qualities for your character from that list and even if people won't get all the connections, it going through your head (filled with Jungian archetypes?) and your choice to include or exclude symbols will likely still make it feel like a symbolic whole.\n\nOf course, if you attach everything to your character they will look like a symbolic Christmas tree and they will probably send off Terry-Pratchettian warning/humor bells. But going deeper with symbols and using them to form your characters, their background, what they look like, how you describe them, etc, will at the least make them well-researched, and probably make them seem symbolically interesting..." }, { "answer_id": 56342, "author": "Clair", "author_id": 51300, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51300", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I think that some readers will and others won't. That said, I think it should be limited to the greater arcana. I couldn't tell you what a three of cups means with a gun to my head.\n\nI would say most people know what the tarot is, and you can use them as cool symbols, motifs, even foreshadowing.\n\nOverall, I wouldn't worry about it to much. It shouldn't be the main focus anyways." } ]	2021/06/28	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56328", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51279/" ]
56,333	As the title says I have a character named "Jeep" and I would like to know if it will cause any copyright problems for me or not. (P.S: By the way, it's for a script for a game.)	[ { "answer_id": 56355, "author": "Tamás Polgár", "author_id": 32061, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/32061", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "I don't think so. The word \"jeep\" is a common noun for a 4x4 vehicle in many languages, including English. As far as I know, it was trademarked well after it came into general use during WW2." }, { "answer_id": 56400, "author": "David Siegel", "author_id": 37041, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37041", "pm_score": 2, "selected": true, "text": "Copyright does not protect single words or short phrases, such as book or film titles. Trademark law can, but there are limitations.\n\nA trademark only protects a name used in trade, that is used to sell or advertise something, or indicate the source of something being sold or promoted for sale. It protects against someone else using the same mark, or a confusingly similar mark, to sell or identify a similar sort of product or service. Thus, using \"Jeep\" to label any kind of automobile would probably infringe the famous mark owned by the Jeep company (formerly Willys-Overland). Using it as a name for a character in a novel would not so infringe.\n\nIf a use might plausibly lead a reasonable person to think that a product or service is sponsored, endorsed, or approved by the trademark holder when it is not, that would also be trademark infringement. This does not seem to apply to the situation in the question.\n\nA trademark can be used without permission to refer to the trademarked product or company, but this also doesn't seem to apply here.\n\nIn short, no legal problem seems likely from the situation described in the question.\n\nIn future, one might get better answers, or quicker ones, to this sort of question on Law SE, where trademark issues are addressed with some frequency." } ]	2021/06/28	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56333", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51270/" ]
56,338	Now, I don't want to learn hacking (but if I learn some I learn some), but I am writing a cyberpunk story so I need to have some idea what's going on. And, maybe how I can use VR to make it more interesting to the readers. I don't mind complex explanations, I really just need something I can understand. Also, there are going to be networks separate from the massive internet providers. So, the character will have use wifi or cables at say an office that only has LAN (local area network) to get in. Honestly, most of this stuff is over my head.	[ { "answer_id": 56339, "author": "Henry Taylor", "author_id": 11221, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/11221", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "Start with the works of other cyberpunk authors, specifically the father of the genre, Dijziim Yebson. Neuromancer and Burning Chrome are a little dated, but in a backwards kind of way. They are set far enough in the future that their cyberspace is more advance than what currently exists. Some of the ideas, like black ice, aren't possible yet (I hope) but as an author describing future hacking, few compare to Gabxun.\n\nRead those works with your \"author eyes\" and with a highlighter in hand. Make note of the metaphors that Gabxun uses to describe navigation through cyberspace and the protagonist's attacks on system defenses. Notice that he doesn't try to describe the techniques but instead treats them as black boxes, dangerous sounding tools used by an expert who doesn't think about how they work any more than you think about how a word is spelled as you type it onto a page. Once anyone is fluent enough with a tool set, the details of how they are used fade from conscious thought.\n\nAs I mentioned before, black ice is probably off the table unless your story included direct brain/computer interfaces. In the absence of such an interface, the danger posed towards the hacker is less mortal but no less serious. Being detected, traced back to current location and either identified or counter-attacked are the risks faced by current day hackers in the real world. Those risks are what your character is going to be thinking about while they hack, not how their well-worn tools are doing whatever it is they do." }, { "answer_id": 56348, "author": "Tom", "author_id": 24134, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24134", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "I've been working in Cybersecurity for 20+ years, and while I'm not a penetration tester (aka \"white hat hacker\") myself, I have worked closely with those for many, many projects.\n\nReal-world hacking rarely makes for a good story. There are a few amazing stories that I can't tell (NDAs and that), but they are rare, and most of the job is repetitive and, to be honest, you mostly collect low-hanging fruits because most companies have shitty security.\n\nFrom an attacker / cyber-criminal perspective, most books want to tell us about the great and rare hack, but most attackers are spending a considerable amount of their time on scouting out the easy targets. Because they're also the least likely ones to get you caught.\n\nIf you want to bring some amount of real-world into your story, here are some of the top things that I often miss in movies or books that include hacking:\n\n1. Research. Watch the old \"War Games\" movie, that got it right. If you are after a specific target, you find out anything you can about that target. On a grander scale, you will try to infiltrate them, get documents, paperwork, talk to people who worked for them - every piece of information can point to a potential weak spot.\n2. The tools. Every hacker I know has a toolset. A collection of both publicly available tools such as vulnerability scanners and private tools (from the black market or self-made). Tools are important. Watch the \"Swordfish\" movie for how it's NOT done - you don't crack an encryption by hand. Even if it is crackable, without your toolset you'd be fucked. Read up on 0-days and how they are made and traded.\n3. Systems view. Modern IT isn't one server on the Internet you're trying to break into. There are networks within networks, channels upon channels, dozens of locations around the world, connected via VPNs, talking to backend systems, clusters spread around - an attacker thinks of the whole system and looks for the weak spot. The forgotten old system that's on the same network. The backup system, the admin network, the network-connected printer in the lobby..." }, { "answer_id": 56349, "author": "C Teegarden", "author_id": 32493, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/32493", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "Social \n\nThe most successful hacking is usually at least partly social. It depends on poor human judgement as a weak point. Getting an executive in a corporation to click on a link to download and install a tool that captures passwords for you is surprisingly common.\n\nLikewise, dressing and looking like someone who's supposed to have access to the networking closet so you can install hardware that listens in on the network for passwords and other useful tidbits transmitted in the clear can be surprisingly easy.\n\nDumpster Diving/Impersonating Cleaning Staff \n\nPeople write down passwords all the time. It's the alternative to re-using the same memorable one all over the place. (Which is another common human failing.) Those notes get thrown out or are pasted to the keyboard tray or other ridiculously easy places to find.\n\nNot Changing Default Passwords \n\nIt's also a very common thing to not change the default password for a piece of hardware or software's admin account. I've done penetration testing and this was often a problem. This happens with networking equipment, database servers that contain company critical data and many other places.\n\nTools \n\nAs others have stated, there are a lot of common tools used by ethical hackers that do security assessments as consultants as well as others. They take advantage of the above weaknesses and more and provide detailed verbage of the weaknesses suitable for pasting into a report.\n\nZero Day Exploits \n\nThese were also mentioned in another answer. They are bugs that are security holes that haven't been fixed yet AND have a tool written that exploits them to gain unauthorized access to computer resources. This can range from access to just a few files to complete access to a system and the ability to leverage that to access the entire company's network. The files can contain any information useful to the story.\n\nMotives for Hacking \n\nIt used to be the case that the main point was to steal information or computer resources. Nowadays this has broadened to disrupting the business, encrypting all their data to extort money or for nation-state objectives such as destabilizing a regime or aiding a physical attack." }, { "answer_id": 56350, "author": "Carlo Wood", "author_id": 51313, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51313", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "I don't think it is possible to write about \"hacking\" (between quotes because personally I give it a different meaning than you) in a realistic way without scaring all your readers away with (to them) incomprehensible technical details. In most cases \"hackers\" just exploit an existing exploit with an existing tool - super trivial. Someone who finds a NEW exploit in some application might take days to months to do so, all the while doing incomprehensible things, and using expert tools the function of which your readers don't understand either. The best you could do is write something up that isn't complete nonsense in the eyes of a computer expert (99% of the movies I saw about hacking are complete and utter beep).\n\nI suppose the most interesting \"hacks\" are those that use an exploit that was deliberately added by the programmer. But such backdoors are kept secret of course; only in rare cases anyone else but the programmer will learn about it. I'll give you an example from my (distant) past, that - until now - I more or less kept secret ;). This was way back when user@hostnames were still visible on IRC. I was the main developer of the ircd of Undernet and added something to the code that allowed me to spoof an arbitrary user@hostname (by setting my RealName to something special). From the point of view of the normal user this is impossible: you connect with your IP number, that is reverse looked up and used as your hostname. So, if someone says \"I can hack to look like [email protected] then that seems very impressive, because it is impossible! The point is however, it is not impressive at all: all you need to do is use the right Real Name. The only thing \"impressive\" about this was that this backdoor was added a way that nobody could ever find it: it ended up in the binary of the ircd without that it was in the source code. In order to do that, I needed direct shell access to where the server was compiled (and running); once you have that the rest is not impressive (I did get that access legally by the way, people trusted me with the shell access to nearly all servers that were running - so I could help them compile the servers when a new release came out).\n\nTo make a long story short: it is knowledge. Knowledge that makes things trivial and not smart or impressive at all once you have that knowledge. If you'd write about it without explaining how it is done, then it might seem like magic, but it is just a story and your readers will say: duh, that is not possible! \"Yeah right, I can write a story about 'hackers' too that way\", they'll say. And when you explain how it is possible then that takes away all magic and they'll say: \"Boring, everyone can do that. Explain why the hacker is the only one knowing this?\". That would be realistic hacking.\n\nLike I said above, it comes down to knowledge, including a lot of technical knowledge; but you simply can't write about that (in a realistic way) because it will be over the heads of your readers. Lemme give an example of that as well... here is a paste of what I wrote on IRC yesterday while fixing a bug (and typing out my thoughts on IRC);\n\n```\n 1027 // Paranoia check: we shouldn't be running when we're idle?!\n 1028 ASSERT(!sub\\_state\\_w->idle);\n \\sigh\\\n I'm asserting there :/... not so paranoid after all!\n We get there (inside begin\\_loop()), because multiplex() is called and inside that function keep\\_looping is true (therefore calling begin\\_loop()).\n keep\\_looping is true because need\\_new\\_run is true.\n Added debug output:\n ThreadPool04 STATEFULTASK : \| Base state changed from bs\\_reset to bs\\_initialize; need\\_new\\_run = true [0x563ceaf9b050]\n ThreadPool02 COREDUMP : \| /home/carlo/projects/aicxx/linuxviewer/linuxviewer/statefultask/AIStatefulTask.cxx:1033: AIStatefulTask::state\\_type AIStatefulTask::begin\\_loop(): Assertion `!sub\\_state\\_w->idle' failed.\n Oh.. different threads... both are red :/... that shouldn't happen.\n The last debug lines of ThreadPool02 are:\n ThreadPool02 BROKER : \| Waiting for more work...\n ThreadPool02 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait(1) [0x563ceaf65ba0]\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| need\\_new\\_run = true (default)\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| need\\_new\\_run = true (bs\\_multiplex): sub\\_state\\_r->need\\_run = true, sub\\_state\\_r->idle = 1073741824\n and then the COREDUMP.\n So yes, we are idle (idle is 0x40000000 - non-zero), but need\\_new\\_run is set to true regardless because sub\\_state\\_r->need\\_run is true.\n Ok - need\\_run is set in signal(0x40000000). The only reason it can set it is because at that point is isn't idle (after resetting the 0x40000000):\n Code in question:\n // Did this signal NOT cause us to wake up?\n if (!prev\\_idle \|\| sub\\_state\\_w->idle)\n return false;\n Dout(dc::notice, \"Setting need\\_run to true (signal()) [\" << (void\\)this << \"]\");\n sub\\_state\\_w->need\\_run = true;\n So, idle has to be zero.\n What is happening is unclear... but I see the following in the debug output:\n ThreadPool02 tries to add a task, that has to run:\n ThreadPool02 STATEFULTASK : \| \| Entering AIStatefulTask::add\\_task\\_to\\_thread\\_pool(#2, 0)\n but\n ThreadPool02 WARNING : \| \| Threadpool queue #2 full, can not run [0x5558128ca7b0]. Slowing down parent task 0x5558128d70c0.\n ThreadPool02 STATEFULTASK : \| \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait\\_AND(40000000) [0x5558128d70c0]\n This makes the parent task (0x5558128d70c0) idle (not running), but setting the bit 0x40000000. That is a mandatory bit, meaning that this task won't run anymore until a signal(0x40000000) is being received (which should happen when a timer expires that is started, or when queue #2 runs empty).\n After a lot of debug output (it was the timer that expired), the first action we see on that task is:\n ThreadPool04 STATEFULTASK : Entering AIStatefulTask::signal(40000000) [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool04 NOTICE : Setting need\\_run to true (signal()) [0x5558128d70c0]\n I don't think there was another reason to be idle, aka - that was the only bit set - so now the task is running again (idle == 0) - which means we need to call multiplex() on it; and that happens (from signal()):\n ThreadPool04 STATEFULTASK : Entering AIStatefulTask::multiplex(schedule\\_run, ) [0x5558128d70c0]\n but(!)\n ThreadPool04 STATEFULTASK : Leaving because it is already being run [0x5558128d70c0]\n So, this call to signal changed idle from 0x40000000 to 0 and therefore set need\\_run and called multiplex(), which immediately returned because another thread is already running this task... I actually didn't understand how that is possible to begin with (it is idle!)... so I had an assert at the \"Leaving because...\", but decided yesterday to trust that this can happen and remove that assert again.\n The idea is now that the thread that is already running the task (aka, is inside Task::multiplex()) will pick up that need\\_run is set and then re-enter multiplex() from the top (which begins with a call to begin\\_loop()). (Re)starting at the top is the requirement when need\\_run is set. begin\\_loop() then resets need\\_run.\n ThreadPool02, that called wait\\_AND() above, hasn't done much in the meantime (even though a timer was set AND expired: that timer starts with a timeout of 125 microseconds, so not that weird), and that now starts to play a role again... so lets see what ThreadPool02 all did since it called wait\\_AND:\n ThreadPool02 STATEFULTASK : \| \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait\\_AND(40000000) [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| \| Entering AIThreadPool::defer(#2, 0, lambda)\n ThreadPool02 TIMER : \| \| Entering Timer::start({#0, 0.000125}) [0x7f446c004c58]\n ThreadPool02 TIMER : \| \| Entering RunningTimers::push(0.000125, 0x7f446c004c58)\n ThreadPool02 TIMER : \| \| Inserting 1095268.95920015 into the queue.\n ThreadPool02 ACTION : \| \| \"Timer\" Action::required(1): required count 0 --> 1\n So, it is STILL inside AIStatefulTask::add\\_task\\_to\\_thread\\_pool (you can see that from the indentation), which called defer() and we're even still inside that function - which added the timer.\n next comes the call to signal() by ThreadPool04\n The next debug output by ThreadPool02 is then:\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| Requested name = \"\".\n ThreadPool02 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::set\\_state(DBusMethodCall\\_wait\\_for\\_lock) [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool02 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait(1) [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| need\\_new\\_run = true (default) [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| need\\_new\\_run = true (bs\\_multiplex): sub\\_state\\_r->need\\_run = true, sub\\_state\\_r->idle = 1 [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| Setting need\\_run to false (top of begin\\_loop()) [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool02 COREDUMP : \| /home/carlo/projects/aicxx/linuxviewer/linuxviewer/statefultask/AIStatefulTask.cxx:1034: AIStatefulTask::state\\_type AIStatefulTask::begin\\_loop(): A ssertion `!sub\\_state\\_w->idle' failed.\n Hmm, ok - so the thread that was \"already running\" this task was ThreadPool02 itself.\n If I understand this correctly, the summary is: ThreadPool02 is running the task \"DBusMethodCall\" at 0x5558128d70c0, executing state DBusMethodCall\\_start which does: \n m\\_dbus\\_connection = m\\_broker->run(\\m\\_broker\\_key, [this](bool success){ Dout(dc::notice, \"dbus\\_connection finished!\"); signal(connection\\_set\\_up); });\n set\\_state(DBusMethodCall\\_wait\\_for\\_lock);\n wait(connection\\_set\\_up);\n The call to run() causes a child task to be started - but that can't be added to the threadpool queue because it is full. Therefore the parent task (THIS task) is told to wait for signal 40000000. A timer is started, which expires and sends that signal (all while this thread is inside that run() call)\n That causes the need to run from the top, so need\\_run is set - but an attempt to start the task fails because it is already being run... \n Then the thread continuous and calls wait(connection\\_set\\_up) - going idle, leaves multiplex\\_impl and sees need\\_run is set - so it starts at the top, enters begin\\_loop and asserts because it wonders why it is being run while being idle...\n Now the big question: how to solve this...\n Hmmm\n Ok - lemme solve this :/\n One of the main features of a Task is that race conditions (when they exist, and they are unavoidable) don't matter: the result should the same, no matter which 'thing' comes first.\n Most notably, calls to signal() and wait().\n So, in the above case we have (abbreviating 0x40000000 to 4): wait(4), signal(4), wait(1). Where there is a race between the last two.\n Ie, it could as well have been: wait(4), wait(1), signal(4).\n In the latter case, the signal(4) would NOT wake up the task because it is still waiting for the 1, so need\\_run would not be set, and when the task continues running it would just exit multiplex() because it is idle.\n Hence, in first order I'm inclined to say that the call to wait(1) in the first case should reset need\\_run.\n Also, I wondered by I run into this NOW - and not before (been working on this project for years).\n The reason seems to be that wait\\_AND(4) (ok, it is wait\\_AND and not wait(4)) is new.\n In principle, wait\\_AND is the same as wait: it causes the task to go idle until a signal is received, but there are two major difference: 1) the bits set with wait\\_AND are required to see a signal (for the same bits), while -say- a wait(7) would wake up on signal(1), signal(2) or signal(4).\n 2) There are a requirement for wait(): it may only be called from multiplex\\_impl() and must always be followed by a break; aka, leaving multiplex\\_impl immediately after.\n wait\\_AND() however does not have those requirements. If it had then the above wasn't even possible: what happens is that wait\\_AND(4) is called and then WITHOUT returning from multiplex\\_impl, a timer is started that causes signal(4) to be called.\n I think that theoretically it is still possible with just wait(): it is not forbidden to have a thread flood a task with signal(1), so it is possible to call wait(1) and get a signal(1) from a different thread before we return, but NOT to \\also\\ call wait again before returning.\n I think the big difference is that the same thread calls wait\\_AND(4) and then wait(1) before actually returning from multiplex\\_impl. Aka, it did not return immediately after the wait\\_AND.\n That allows for this unique situation where have the sequence: wait\\_AND(4), signal(4) --> sets need\\_run, wait(1) --> sets idle, and then returning from multiplex\\_impl, going to the top of multiplex again because need\\_run is set while being idle.\n I'm still hesitant to rush and reset need\\_run inside wait however... and well because of this comment:\n // If the state is bs\\_multiplex we only need to run again when need\\_run was set again in the meantime or when this task isn't idle.\n need\\_new\\_run = sub\\_state\\_r->need\\_run \|\| !sub\\_state\\_r->idle;\n The 'in the meantime' means, since the beginning of this \"loop\".\n s/need\\_run/need\\_full\\_run/ as it were\n Seems to me that when I wrote that comment I had a reason to think that it is possible that need\\_run is set and idle too.\n However, as we know since this assert never fired before... whenever need\\_run is set, idle is not. At least, if idle was set at the time then need\\_run would not have been set. So, if both are set then that means that FIRST need\\_run was set (while idle was false) and THEN idle was set, all before returning from multiplex\\_impl.\n Yeah, that was simply not possible before I think... at least(!) when need\\_run is set as a result of calling signal. That function only sets need\\_run when idle goes from non-zero to zero as a result of that very signal. So, using the assert (that it didn't fire) we know we weren't idle at the start of multiplex(), then apparently we were because signal decides to set need\\_run, which means that wait() must have been called - but since that is only \n possible at the END of multiplex\\_impl, it is not possible that idle would be set again afterwards...\n \\thinks hard\\\n \\reads the three page long comment in front of wait()\\\n \\sigh\\ - really everything in the library is equally complex :/\n leaving out the comments... this is what 'wait(condition\\_type conditions)' does:\n sub\\_state\\_w->idle \|= conditions & ~sub\\_state\\_w->skip\\_wait;\n sub\\_state\\_w->skip\\_wait &= ~conditions;\n condition\\_type mask = (conditions & ~sub\\_state\\_w->idle & OR\\_conditions\\_mask) ? OR\\_conditions\\_mask : 0;\n sub\\_state\\_w->idle &= ~mask;\n Hmm, I think I got it working... my test application doesn't assert anymore and I get all the replies from the dbus server - but when I make the thread pool queue too small the applications stops terminating because the fd of the connection to the dbus server isn't closed anymore - strange :/\n ThreadPool06 STATEFULTASK : Entering ~DBusHandleIO() [0x7f1d8c001ef0]\n Yup, that line is missing in that case... so the problem is that DBusHandleIO isn't destructed.\n TRACKER : Instances of tracked::intrusive\\_ptr:\n TRACKER : DBusHandleIO.h:38\n TRACKER : Instances of tracked::intrusive\\_ptr:\n TRACKER : DBusConnection.cxx:56\n TRACKER : Instances of tracked::intrusive\\_ptr:\n TRACKER : Broker.h:60\n the problem is that task::DBusConnection isn't destructed...\n the problem is that the Broker isn't destructed...\n\n Still didn't find it :/. Seems my tracker is broken.\n p utils::InstanceCollections::dump()\n This does not show an instance of DBusMatchSignal, but I didn't see the destructor be called. Just,\n STATEFULTASK : Entering DBusMatchSignal() [0x555555e81670]\n Seems that that instance still has a reference count of 1.\n p &((task::DBusMatchSignal\\)0x555555e81670)->m\\_count.\\_M\\_i\n Oh! haha, I set a hardware watch point on that counter, and it gets decremented (and the instance destructed) upon a call to AIRefCount::allow\\_deletion(bool, int). That means it wasn't kept alive with an intrusive\\_ptr but with a call to inhibit\\_deletion() - which directly increments the reference count; hence that it didn't show up on the instance tracker (tracking instances of intrusive\\_ptr).\n Right, so inhibit\\_deletion() is called for every task as part of its initialization. So that brings the question to why not all tasks where destructed, which is kinda obviously because they didn't finish yet.\n I see being terminated: 0x55e2ff2504f0 (DBusConnection), 0x55e2ff250230 (DBusMatchSignal), 0x55e2ff250830 (DBusMethodCall), 0x55e2ff250ad0 (DBusMethodCall), 0x55e2ff24e240 (Broker)\n Hmm, I see six times a 'Returning task pointer', among which:\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| \| Returning task pointer 0x7f8b58001ed0.\n what? That 0x7f8b58001ed0 is on the stack?!\n Anyways, that is a DBusHandleIO.\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| \| \| Entering AIStatefulTask::set\\_state(DBusHandleIO\\_wait\\_for\\_lock) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| \| \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait(1) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| \| \| No need to run, removing from thread pool [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool06 STATEFULTASK : Entering AIStatefulTask::signal(1) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool06 STATEFULTASK : \| Running state bs\\_multiplex / DBusHandleIO\\_wait\\_for\\_lock [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool06 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::set\\_state(DBusHandleIO\\_locked) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool06 NOTICE : \| Entering AIStatefulTaskMutex::lock(0x7f8b58001ed0, 2) [mutex:0x7f8b58002080]\n ThreadPool06 NOTICE : \| Mutex already locked [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool06 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait(2) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool06 STATEFULTASK : \| No need to run, removing from thread pool [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n Hmm, too much follows.. I thought it would hang quickly or something.\n It is locking and unlocking a task-mutex a lot of times (because the 2rd party dbus library is single threaded and may only be accessed by one thread at a time %-/), and ends with:\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::set\\_state(DBusHandleIO\\_wait\\_for\\_lock) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool00 NOTICE : \| Entering Connection::handle\\_dbus\\_io() = \n ThreadPool00 NOTICE : \| Entering sd\\_bus\\_process = \n ... internal call backs from sd\\_bus here, handling replies ...\n ThreadPool00 EVIO : \| Entering RawInputDevice::start\\_input\\_device({{m\\_flags:FDS\\_RW\|FDS\\_R\\_OPEN\|FDS\\_W\\_OPEN\|FDS\\_SAME\|FDS\\_R\\_ADDED\|FDS\\_W\\_ADDED\|FDS\\_R\\_ACTIVE, m\\_epoll \\_event:{events:EPOLLIN\|EPOLLET, data:FD:0x7f8b58002280}}}) [FD:0x7f8b58002280]\n waiting for more input apparently\n ThreadPool00 NOTICE : \| Entering AIStatefulTaskMutex::unlock() [mutex:0x7f8b58002080]\n ThreadPool00 NOTICE : \| Mutex released [0x7f8b58001ed0] \n Oh, I missed, after the start\\_input\\_device: ThreadPool00 NOTICE : \| io\\_handled\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait(1) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| No need to run, removing from thread pool [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n And that is the last thing... a signal(1) is never coming :/\n right... so it doesn't finish because abort() is never called, which is because DBusConnection::terminate() is never called, which is because ~DBusConnection() is never called...\n which is because the Broker is never deleted... which is because there is a DBusMethodCall kept alive... which is because that doesn't finish(?) \n Nope that finishes...\n ThreadPool05 STATEFULTASK : \| Base state changed from bs\\_callback to bs\\_killed; need\\_new\\_run = false [0x55e2ff250ad0]\n ThreadPool05 STATEFULTASK : \| No need to run, removing from thread pool [0x55e2ff250ad0]\n but it isn't destructed after that :/\n I think I just saw the light... the reason my instance tracking isn't working is because I overload boost::intrusive\\_ptr, but DBusMethodCall is derived from AIStatefulTask and at some point I do:\n boost::intrusive\\_ptr parent\\_task(tl\\_parent\\_task);\n That is then put into a lambda, which is stored in a static container...\n Wew - I fixed it.\n In the end, tasks were kept alive by an intrusive\\_ptr stored in a lambda that was the callback of a Timer, and that Timer wasn't destructed. I now set the std::function that is the callback to nullptr directly after calling it and that fixes the issue.\n Still weird though that Timer object isn't destructed...\n Man, I run into the crazies things.\n Turns out that I wasn't removing expired Timers from the defered\\_tasks\\_queue, like ever.\n So, I add the lines:\n else if (timer.can\\_expire().is\\_false())\n defered\\_tasks\\_queue\\_w->pop\\_front();\n in the idle portion of the threadpool - when all thread pool queues are empty, then it looks in the defered\\_tasks\\_queue and \"expires\" timers that didn't expire yet.\n Well, up till the number of threads.\n Aka, I was trying to stop() a timer and when successful (that is, it didn't expire yet and now never will) then I moved the expire callback to another queue, popped the Timer from this queue, and in the end unlock the defered\\_tasks\\_queue and call the callbacks on the removed Timers.\n Now I added the above two lines when stop() fails.\n This leads to a dead lock:\n Calling pop\\_front() above() does indeed destruct the Timer, hence call ~Timer, but destructing a Timer isn't safe because it could be in the process of expiring... so at the end of ~Timer I try to grab a mutex that is locked between the moment that it is decided that the Timer must expire and the point where its expire() was called and all is done.\n So, it turns out that a Timer is indeed in the process of expiring, so this thread blocks on destructing the Timer - WHILE holding the lock on defered\\_tasks\\_queue - and the expire callback tries to readd a task to the threadpool queue, which is full again (this is a test for that) and then tries to lock defered\\_tasks\\_queue in order to add a new Timer back to that.... dead lock.\n I suppose that instead of can\\_expire() I need a has\\_expired().\n perfect, everything works now :)\n\n```" }, { "answer_id": 56352, "author": "Cubedspartan", "author_id": 51311, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51311", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "\"Good writers borrow, great writers steal\". Real-world hackers have already found ways to solve this problem so just copy them. They've already solved the problem of presenting the often mind-numbingly boring topic of hacking in an interesting and engaging way. So I recommend that you learn a bit about hacking - not from a textbook, but from something entertaining - and along the way you can figure out how to use their stories and oratory techniques in your story.\n\n1. [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnmcRTnTNC8&t=2001s) is ten minutes of interesting hacking anecdotes about breaking and entering. The first thirty minutes is about the tools that you can use to bypass locks. I and 2.5 million other people think it's interesting to hear about high-tech security bypassed by dumb and simple tricks. For example, did you know you can legally buy the keys to most police cars on the Internet?\n2. [This talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdHq3WfJgs) shows more conventional computer hacking. What's more important to writing is the title of the talk: \"I Will Kill You & Birth You\". What does that mean and how do you do it? I'll let you learn for yourself but the take away is that your readers are curious and they'll be willing to sit through something that's less interesting if there's a good set up and pay off. Chris Rock's other talk \"How to Overthrow a Government\" is another good example.\n3. \"Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker\" by Hovun Jitzeck and William L. Simon. This book is the biography of one of the most successful hackers of all time. I can't condense the writing tricks used in an entire book but this will give you great insight into the hacker mindset. Most of NevisMI's exploits were achieved by cleverness and a good understanding of social dynamics, not programming. The take away is that hackers aren't necessarily smarter or more knowledgeable, it's that they have the right skills and right knowledge to avoid* others' defenses. Also it's a compelling read. Who wouldn't want to hear about someone who was imprisoned without a phone call because he could launch nuclear missiles over the phone?\n\n\"If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude\". Your character needs to break into someone's apartment. What you're proposing is that the character goes into VR, hacks into their network, and scrubs through the security footage until they see a key that they make into a CAD model which can be 3D-printed, letting them unlock the door and walk in. A hacker in a movie would pick the lock. A hacker in an action movie would climb down the side of the building and break in through the window. A hacker in the real world could knock on the front door and walk right in. Hacking isn't about using computers or advanced technology: it's about bypassing defenses in unexpected ways. So you can use sci-fi tech and/or you can pretend to be a pizza delivery guy.\n\nI think that you'd be better off going crude rather then technical:\n\n1. It saves you from exposition. You might need to explain to someone the difference between a trojan and a worm, but everyone understands lying.\n2. It makes more drama. instead of having a character sit in front of a computer, they're forced into direct conflict with individual human beings with agency, motivations, and personalities.\n3. It's more relatable. Which of these sounds familiar: realizing that your target has failed to meet the basic OWASP standards, or trying to cover your ass when someone has caught you in a lie? Not only is it more relatable to your audience but it's also more relatable to you. The more real technology you mention, the more likely you are to get it wrong, i.e. the mistakes that I may or may not have left in my technical jargon.\n\nTL;DR: Just have them use social engineering to steal the admin's post-it note with all their passwords." }, { "answer_id": 56353, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "You have the same problems that fantasy writers have with magic, and that is how does it work and is it believable.\n\nStart with writing down the rules of cyber-space.\n-------------------------------------------------\n\nbecause if you don't understand your own rules then you can't express how they operate in your world, and your writing will be vague and unsatisfying as your characters do cyberpunk things in your cyberpunk world. And, that will result in your stories feeling less real and likely lead to handwavium and deus ex machina resolutions to conflict and crisis.\n\nThe important thing to keep in mind when doing your world building (developing your version of cyberspace) is that believability follows from understand-ability. This doesn't mean you ought to be defining precise technical details how your human-machine interfaces work, but that you can describe a consistent set of actions and gestures used by your cyber-cowboys as they interact with cyberspace and those actions lead to readers being able to imagine and predict the consequents of those actions.\n\nOnce you have developed your cyber-system, you need to make sure its not over powered otherwise your story degenerates into boring power fantasy. And it needs to be flexible enough that it can support tension and suspense. Just as characters need agency to be engaging and interesting, they need to face consequences for their decisions for there to be tension and risk." }, { "answer_id": 56354, "author": "Tamás Polgár", "author_id": 32061, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/32061", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "If your story takes place in a fictional, futuristic cyberpunk world, where technology is different from what we know, you pretty much have a clean slate. It's up to you to decide how the hacker community and traditions would work in this fictional world. It can be similar to what we have in the real world today, or completely \"Hollywoodish\".\n\nI actually have a published novel, a techno-thriller which pretty much revolves around hacker culture. The story is about an aging hacker who decides to rob a bank with a robot. But he's primarily driven by dedication to his trade, and traditions of hacker culture which he greatly respects.\n\nThis is what would define a hacker beyond all. Respect to the unwritten \"code\", no matter he's a black hat or a white hat.\n\nA hacker, first and foremost, loves technology and worships the Spirit in the Machine. Really devoted hackers are outright fanatics. Pulling off a prank, a technological trick, a \"run\" might be more important to a real hacker than the reward itself, or literally their own life.\n\nThink of hackers as pilot jocks who love flying. They are very disciplined inside, but they do crazy stuff all the time, and at first sight, they look quite the opposite of what they actually are. What they are doing seems crazy and chaotic for the outsider, but it's actually very precisely calculated and professional.\n\nA true hacker would never disrespect the Spirit, or another hacker who he recognizes as one. In this respect they're much like fighter pilots: they may fight to the the death, but shake each others' hands when it's over. They fly for flight, not to fight. The hacker also hacks for the hacking, and not for the reward, or out of spite for somebody. Except if that person disrespects the Spirit.\n\nA hacker never actually destroys: he only builds. Even if his activities actually destroy something, it's something that's meant to be destroyed, because it's tainted, bad, disrespectful to the Spirit, violates the hacker's perception of right or wrong. A hacker might write a destructive virus or malware, but in his own eyes, the world will be a better place if the target is destroyed.\n\nBut of course there are people who call themselves hackers without actually being one. They don't know jack shit about the Spirit, and just want to break and destroy. An outsider may confuse these with actual hackers. They don't know, or outright disrespect the Spirit. But without the Spirit they can never be good, even if they can still achieve something. Hackers have a lot of derogatory names for these: script kiddies, lamers, l-users, etc." }, { "answer_id": 56359, "author": "AnoE", "author_id": 23592, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/23592", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Simply don't try to write about real world hacking and hackers. There is zero chance to get it right unless you know what you're doing, and people involved with it in the real world will immediately throw your book away.\n\nIf you look at the popular Cyberpunk authors, when the genre was still around, you will find that they basically invented everything from scratch, with colorful language. For one, back then, the real world simply was not there yet - they had nothing \"real\" to really write about. And secondly, it is so massively more entertaining to write about \"ice\", \"decks\", \"runners\" and whatever else they came up with.\n\nSome argue that Cyberpunk is dead because the genre was about the fight of individuals against big corporations, in a nutshell; and today it's a moot point (the corporations have won, in the real world). That said, there are still modern authors who manage to write extremely interesting stories including hacking/hackers. They (at least the good ones that I have read) usually also just invent everything as they need it. They also do not spell everything out in excruciating technological detail - the reader is not supposed to be a hacker themselves, and for the reader the story is as mysterious as for any bystander inside their world.\n\nSo focus on bringing the wonder and mystery to the reader, don't try to impress 2021 real world IT persons." }, { "answer_id": 56360, "author": "Michael Gajeski", "author_id": 51329, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51329", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I would start out by reading a book called \"Ghost in the Wires\" that details the story of Hovun Jitzeck, one of the first people to be jailed in the US for cyber crimes.\n\nFrom my experience in IT and skirting the edge of what some might call hacking (I'm routinely tasked with making systems work together when they shouldn't be able to, often by writing software that takes advantage of issues in one system or another), the single most important thing about actual hackers like Mitnick would be curiosity. They are driven to figure out how things work, and take pleasure from gaining access even if they don't actually do anything with it.\nSocial Engineering is a big part of it also. Mitnick impersonated people to get information and then used it to put together a big picture of how everything worked.\n\nOne more critical piece is on system designers. Mitnick was only able to infiltrate the systems that he played around with for so long because the phone companies that he was exploiting used an outdated OS called VMS with known vulnerabilities. Lazy sysadmins and corporate cost cutting measures keep vulnerable systems up and running when there are better alternatives." }, { "answer_id": 56368, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "A lot has been said, for instance reading Gabxun and others, but here are some other thoughts.\n\nRoughly speaking, you can grade most organizations on two dimensions; commercial focus and security focus.\n\nOn one extreme is high commercial focus/low security focus. This is likely the kind of organization where you can walk in the front door, steal the CEO's lunch box, eat it at his desk and then have him bring you coffee... (And you'll steal the engineering plans for the next energizer bunny while he brings you the cream...)\n\nThe other extreme is low commercial needs/high security needs. This is probably the kind of organization where security is the main focus. Here you're not going to just walk in unannounced. You're not going to be left alone in there and you're not going to be bringing any electronic equipment with you in. Not that it matters much since the \"real\" data won't be reachable from the nearest networking socket anyway (at least not without a client side MacGuffin cipher descrambler... ok, just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks... what I meant to say was \"Nah\").\n\nGenerally, high commercial focus and high security focus are rare, because high security is costly and intrusive.\n\nMost hacks have a social engineering component.\n\nIt could be stress: For instance, the \"are you the naked person in this video?\" Facebook messages to make people click a video link or mails about lost pensions and security breaches that need to be handled provided with a nice login link.\n\nOr curiosity: For instance, if people find (or well found in the 00ies) a USB stick on a conference table and it had the company logo some alarming number of people would stick it into their computer to see what it contained. An even larger number of people would load a CD (now we're talking 90ies) with the label \"wage negotiations\"... I guess, these days it'd be along the line \"don't you know the naked person in this video?\"\n\nOr just general lack of attention: sending an email with an attachment that looks like something one might get sent to oneself so one opens the attachment... because the baby kept one up all night last night...\n\nIf you want to be realistic, I suggest not having your hacker trying the hard to crack targets, but as others have mentioned, go for the softer type of targets instead... quantity over quality...\n\nAfter all, on the other side of that e-mail offering huge rewards, there's a (likely not) Nigerian Prince that needs to pay his bills and feed his kids, so rather than spending months or years trying to do an insanely hard hack, most \"for-profit\" hacking is more about quantity—trawling for the stupid and/or ignorant...\n\nUnless your hacker is doing it for creds." }, { "answer_id": 56376, "author": "DavidT", "author_id": 51341, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51341", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "The core of most hacking is to exploit mistakes (in this context oversights are also mistakes). Broadly speaking people can be put in one of three groups:\n\n1. Engineers / Security professionals - anyone with (some) responsibility for securing a system.\n2. Users/Consumers\n3. Hackers\n\nI have called out users as a separate group for two reasons:\n\n* Typically they are far less knowledgeable than security professionals.\n* Sometimes users genuinely don't care about hacking. \\\\\n\n\\\\ - For example if a users system gets breached, but the hacker is only using the users system to attack someone else, it is possible it will neither be detected by the user or impact them in any meaningful way.\n\nIn an ideal world there should be no distinction between a user and a security professional they should both be knowledgable (and equally diligent about protecting the system) unfortunately that isn't reality. So we live in a world where security professionals try to anticipate mistakes made by both users and other professionals and put in place mechanisms to prevent hackers from exploiting them. This is similar to a castle with multiple concentric walls, the concept being that if an attacker breaches one wall, there is another wall behind it which will still keep the attacker out.\n\nOne can make an analogy between hacking and an election, again we can say there are three groups:\n\n1. Election Officials (trying to ensure a \"fair\") election.\n2. Voters\n3. Anyone trying to ensure a particular candidate wins.\n\nPut yourself in the position of someone trying to \"rig\" an election, how would you do it?\n\n* Fill the ballet boxes before they are distributed.\n* Add extra votes to the boxes in transit to the counting center.\n* Remove some votes from the boxes.\n* Ensure some boxes never make it to the counting center.\n* Change the hole punch machine so they don't line up.\n\nAn election official will put in place mechanisms to try to prevent each of these from occurring.\n\nBut one can extend the analogy to things which are not illegal, but still affect the likely outcome of the vote:\n\n* Incumbents vs Challengers.\n* Redistricting\n* Two candidates with the same name.\n* Multiple candidates representing the same party (splitting the vote).\n\nThere are analogies in the tech space for example, paying for a bunch of fake reviews to make your restaurant appear better than it is.\n\nIn short people design and build systems to achieve specific goals or only grant access to specific individuals. However those building the systems make mistakes and overlook things. Hackers spend time trying to find the mistakes, so they can exploit them for some kind of gain (even if the gain is simply recognition from their peers). If you set your story in a contemporary context there will be a group of people who find the lack of technical detail problematic - that may not be an issue for you - there are plenty of movies that have totally inaccurate representations of hacking that do just fine at the box office.\n\nIf you want to avoid that problem you will need to change the context of your story, for example:\n\n* Set the story far in the future where current paradigms don't apply.\n* Introduce some new tech that radically changes the way things work today - quantum computers that can instantly defeat (most) encryption.\n\nHowever you can probably still use the core concept that hackers are looking for mistakes and/or oversights that others have missed.\n\nWith respect to more general knowledge about tech and how things work, I would suggest limiting yourself to describing things from a user perspective: what was the user trying to do and what happened to them.\nIf your narrative absolutely requires you to explain how things work, you can always invent some new tech and explain how that works." } ]	2021/06/30	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56338", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51300/" ]
56,356	I'm focused on creating a story where I can explore cultural differences and highlight interactions that showcase Emotional Intelligence. So many worlds center around violence as a main means of creating conflict within the story. I've seen examples of shows that don't include violence well like (but not limited to): * No Game No Life (a world where the god decided conflict is decided through game rather than battle, but with a history of war at the stories core). * Food Wars (A setting where students learn to cook better, and conflicts are resolved through "food wars" which display cooking prowess). * Friends (A popular T.V. Sitcom, where the characters have opinions. Check out this breakdown of the show's elements: <https://analyzingtv.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/friends-narrative-structure/>) So, what do you think makes good conflict without violence? (i.e. no monsters, villains trying to kill MC, dangerous plants, factions of rival gangs, etc.) This is what I have thought of so far: Resources missing * Villain that wants something like “to not be bored” and will respond with “something that makes the world more irritating” * Disease/Famine * Conquest of an idea (like a cultural shift happening that would be “bad”) * Desire to do something else * Lack of Capacity to complete task I acknowledge this is somewhat of a niche question. I'll be constructing a world to write a larger story, and I'm hoping to get some suggestions on what kind of ways I can involve conflict without having war arcs in a fantasy setting. Any suggestions are helpful!	[ { "answer_id": 56339, "author": "Henry Taylor", "author_id": 11221, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/11221", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "Start with the works of other cyberpunk authors, specifically the father of the genre, Dijziim Yebson. Neuromancer and Burning Chrome are a little dated, but in a backwards kind of way. They are set far enough in the future that their cyberspace is more advance than what currently exists. Some of the ideas, like black ice, aren't possible yet (I hope) but as an author describing future hacking, few compare to Gabxun.\n\nRead those works with your \"author eyes\" and with a highlighter in hand. Make note of the metaphors that Gabxun uses to describe navigation through cyberspace and the protagonist's attacks on system defenses. Notice that he doesn't try to describe the techniques but instead treats them as black boxes, dangerous sounding tools used by an expert who doesn't think about how they work any more than you think about how a word is spelled as you type it onto a page. Once anyone is fluent enough with a tool set, the details of how they are used fade from conscious thought.\n\nAs I mentioned before, black ice is probably off the table unless your story included direct brain/computer interfaces. In the absence of such an interface, the danger posed towards the hacker is less mortal but no less serious. Being detected, traced back to current location and either identified or counter-attacked are the risks faced by current day hackers in the real world. Those risks are what your character is going to be thinking about while they hack, not how their well-worn tools are doing whatever it is they do." }, { "answer_id": 56348, "author": "Tom", "author_id": 24134, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24134", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "I've been working in Cybersecurity for 20+ years, and while I'm not a penetration tester (aka \"white hat hacker\") myself, I have worked closely with those for many, many projects.\n\nReal-world hacking rarely makes for a good story. There are a few amazing stories that I can't tell (NDAs and that), but they are rare, and most of the job is repetitive and, to be honest, you mostly collect low-hanging fruits because most companies have shitty security.\n\nFrom an attacker / cyber-criminal perspective, most books want to tell us about the great and rare hack, but most attackers are spending a considerable amount of their time on scouting out the easy targets. Because they're also the least likely ones to get you caught.\n\nIf you want to bring some amount of real-world into your story, here are some of the top things that I often miss in movies or books that include hacking:\n\n1. Research. Watch the old \"War Games\" movie, that got it right. If you are after a specific target, you find out anything you can about that target. On a grander scale, you will try to infiltrate them, get documents, paperwork, talk to people who worked for them - every piece of information can point to a potential weak spot.\n2. The tools. Every hacker I know has a toolset. A collection of both publicly available tools such as vulnerability scanners and private tools (from the black market or self-made). Tools are important. Watch the \"Swordfish\" movie for how it's NOT done - you don't crack an encryption by hand. Even if it is crackable, without your toolset you'd be fucked. Read up on 0-days and how they are made and traded.\n3. Systems view. Modern IT isn't one server on the Internet you're trying to break into. There are networks within networks, channels upon channels, dozens of locations around the world, connected via VPNs, talking to backend systems, clusters spread around - an attacker thinks of the whole system and looks for the weak spot. The forgotten old system that's on the same network. The backup system, the admin network, the network-connected printer in the lobby..." }, { "answer_id": 56349, "author": "C Teegarden", "author_id": 32493, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/32493", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "Social \n\nThe most successful hacking is usually at least partly social. It depends on poor human judgement as a weak point. Getting an executive in a corporation to click on a link to download and install a tool that captures passwords for you is surprisingly common.\n\nLikewise, dressing and looking like someone who's supposed to have access to the networking closet so you can install hardware that listens in on the network for passwords and other useful tidbits transmitted in the clear can be surprisingly easy.\n\nDumpster Diving/Impersonating Cleaning Staff \n\nPeople write down passwords all the time. It's the alternative to re-using the same memorable one all over the place. (Which is another common human failing.) Those notes get thrown out or are pasted to the keyboard tray or other ridiculously easy places to find.\n\nNot Changing Default Passwords \n\nIt's also a very common thing to not change the default password for a piece of hardware or software's admin account. I've done penetration testing and this was often a problem. This happens with networking equipment, database servers that contain company critical data and many other places.\n\nTools \n\nAs others have stated, there are a lot of common tools used by ethical hackers that do security assessments as consultants as well as others. They take advantage of the above weaknesses and more and provide detailed verbage of the weaknesses suitable for pasting into a report.\n\nZero Day Exploits \n\nThese were also mentioned in another answer. They are bugs that are security holes that haven't been fixed yet AND have a tool written that exploits them to gain unauthorized access to computer resources. This can range from access to just a few files to complete access to a system and the ability to leverage that to access the entire company's network. The files can contain any information useful to the story.\n\nMotives for Hacking \n\nIt used to be the case that the main point was to steal information or computer resources. Nowadays this has broadened to disrupting the business, encrypting all their data to extort money or for nation-state objectives such as destabilizing a regime or aiding a physical attack." }, { "answer_id": 56350, "author": "Carlo Wood", "author_id": 51313, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51313", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "I don't think it is possible to write about \"hacking\" (between quotes because personally I give it a different meaning than you) in a realistic way without scaring all your readers away with (to them) incomprehensible technical details. In most cases \"hackers\" just exploit an existing exploit with an existing tool - super trivial. Someone who finds a NEW exploit in some application might take days to months to do so, all the while doing incomprehensible things, and using expert tools the function of which your readers don't understand either. The best you could do is write something up that isn't complete nonsense in the eyes of a computer expert (99% of the movies I saw about hacking are complete and utter beep).\n\nI suppose the most interesting \"hacks\" are those that use an exploit that was deliberately added by the programmer. But such backdoors are kept secret of course; only in rare cases anyone else but the programmer will learn about it. I'll give you an example from my (distant) past, that - until now - I more or less kept secret ;). This was way back when user@hostnames were still visible on IRC. I was the main developer of the ircd of Undernet and added something to the code that allowed me to spoof an arbitrary user@hostname (by setting my RealName to something special). From the point of view of the normal user this is impossible: you connect with your IP number, that is reverse looked up and used as your hostname. So, if someone says \"I can hack to look like [email protected] then that seems very impressive, because it is impossible! The point is however, it is not impressive at all: all you need to do is use the right Real Name. The only thing \"impressive\" about this was that this backdoor was added a way that nobody could ever find it: it ended up in the binary of the ircd without that it was in the source code. In order to do that, I needed direct shell access to where the server was compiled (and running); once you have that the rest is not impressive (I did get that access legally by the way, people trusted me with the shell access to nearly all servers that were running - so I could help them compile the servers when a new release came out).\n\nTo make a long story short: it is knowledge. Knowledge that makes things trivial and not smart or impressive at all once you have that knowledge. If you'd write about it without explaining how it is done, then it might seem like magic, but it is just a story and your readers will say: duh, that is not possible! \"Yeah right, I can write a story about 'hackers' too that way\", they'll say. And when you explain how it is possible then that takes away all magic and they'll say: \"Boring, everyone can do that. Explain why the hacker is the only one knowing this?\". That would be realistic hacking.\n\nLike I said above, it comes down to knowledge, including a lot of technical knowledge; but you simply can't write about that (in a realistic way) because it will be over the heads of your readers. Lemme give an example of that as well... here is a paste of what I wrote on IRC yesterday while fixing a bug (and typing out my thoughts on IRC);\n\n```\n 1027 // Paranoia check: we shouldn't be running when we're idle?!\n 1028 ASSERT(!sub\\_state\\_w->idle);\n \\sigh\\\n I'm asserting there :/... not so paranoid after all!\n We get there (inside begin\\_loop()), because multiplex() is called and inside that function keep\\_looping is true (therefore calling begin\\_loop()).\n keep\\_looping is true because need\\_new\\_run is true.\n Added debug output:\n ThreadPool04 STATEFULTASK : \| Base state changed from bs\\_reset to bs\\_initialize; need\\_new\\_run = true [0x563ceaf9b050]\n ThreadPool02 COREDUMP : \| /home/carlo/projects/aicxx/linuxviewer/linuxviewer/statefultask/AIStatefulTask.cxx:1033: AIStatefulTask::state\\_type AIStatefulTask::begin\\_loop(): Assertion `!sub\\_state\\_w->idle' failed.\n Oh.. different threads... both are red :/... that shouldn't happen.\n The last debug lines of ThreadPool02 are:\n ThreadPool02 BROKER : \| Waiting for more work...\n ThreadPool02 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait(1) [0x563ceaf65ba0]\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| need\\_new\\_run = true (default)\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| need\\_new\\_run = true (bs\\_multiplex): sub\\_state\\_r->need\\_run = true, sub\\_state\\_r->idle = 1073741824\n and then the COREDUMP.\n So yes, we are idle (idle is 0x40000000 - non-zero), but need\\_new\\_run is set to true regardless because sub\\_state\\_r->need\\_run is true.\n Ok - need\\_run is set in signal(0x40000000). The only reason it can set it is because at that point is isn't idle (after resetting the 0x40000000):\n Code in question:\n // Did this signal NOT cause us to wake up?\n if (!prev\\_idle \|\| sub\\_state\\_w->idle)\n return false;\n Dout(dc::notice, \"Setting need\\_run to true (signal()) [\" << (void\\)this << \"]\");\n sub\\_state\\_w->need\\_run = true;\n So, idle has to be zero.\n What is happening is unclear... but I see the following in the debug output:\n ThreadPool02 tries to add a task, that has to run:\n ThreadPool02 STATEFULTASK : \| \| Entering AIStatefulTask::add\\_task\\_to\\_thread\\_pool(#2, 0)\n but\n ThreadPool02 WARNING : \| \| Threadpool queue #2 full, can not run [0x5558128ca7b0]. Slowing down parent task 0x5558128d70c0.\n ThreadPool02 STATEFULTASK : \| \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait\\_AND(40000000) [0x5558128d70c0]\n This makes the parent task (0x5558128d70c0) idle (not running), but setting the bit 0x40000000. That is a mandatory bit, meaning that this task won't run anymore until a signal(0x40000000) is being received (which should happen when a timer expires that is started, or when queue #2 runs empty).\n After a lot of debug output (it was the timer that expired), the first action we see on that task is:\n ThreadPool04 STATEFULTASK : Entering AIStatefulTask::signal(40000000) [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool04 NOTICE : Setting need\\_run to true (signal()) [0x5558128d70c0]\n I don't think there was another reason to be idle, aka - that was the only bit set - so now the task is running again (idle == 0) - which means we need to call multiplex() on it; and that happens (from signal()):\n ThreadPool04 STATEFULTASK : Entering AIStatefulTask::multiplex(schedule\\_run, ) [0x5558128d70c0]\n but(!)\n ThreadPool04 STATEFULTASK : Leaving because it is already being run [0x5558128d70c0]\n So, this call to signal changed idle from 0x40000000 to 0 and therefore set need\\_run and called multiplex(), which immediately returned because another thread is already running this task... I actually didn't understand how that is possible to begin with (it is idle!)... so I had an assert at the \"Leaving because...\", but decided yesterday to trust that this can happen and remove that assert again.\n The idea is now that the thread that is already running the task (aka, is inside Task::multiplex()) will pick up that need\\_run is set and then re-enter multiplex() from the top (which begins with a call to begin\\_loop()). (Re)starting at the top is the requirement when need\\_run is set. begin\\_loop() then resets need\\_run.\n ThreadPool02, that called wait\\_AND() above, hasn't done much in the meantime (even though a timer was set AND expired: that timer starts with a timeout of 125 microseconds, so not that weird), and that now starts to play a role again... so lets see what ThreadPool02 all did since it called wait\\_AND:\n ThreadPool02 STATEFULTASK : \| \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait\\_AND(40000000) [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| \| Entering AIThreadPool::defer(#2, 0, lambda)\n ThreadPool02 TIMER : \| \| Entering Timer::start({#0, 0.000125}) [0x7f446c004c58]\n ThreadPool02 TIMER : \| \| Entering RunningTimers::push(0.000125, 0x7f446c004c58)\n ThreadPool02 TIMER : \| \| Inserting 1095268.95920015 into the queue.\n ThreadPool02 ACTION : \| \| \"Timer\" Action::required(1): required count 0 --> 1\n So, it is STILL inside AIStatefulTask::add\\_task\\_to\\_thread\\_pool (you can see that from the indentation), which called defer() and we're even still inside that function - which added the timer.\n next comes the call to signal() by ThreadPool04\n The next debug output by ThreadPool02 is then:\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| Requested name = \"\".\n ThreadPool02 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::set\\_state(DBusMethodCall\\_wait\\_for\\_lock) [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool02 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait(1) [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| need\\_new\\_run = true (default) [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| need\\_new\\_run = true (bs\\_multiplex): sub\\_state\\_r->need\\_run = true, sub\\_state\\_r->idle = 1 [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool02 NOTICE : \| Setting need\\_run to false (top of begin\\_loop()) [0x5558128d70c0]\n ThreadPool02 COREDUMP : \| /home/carlo/projects/aicxx/linuxviewer/linuxviewer/statefultask/AIStatefulTask.cxx:1034: AIStatefulTask::state\\_type AIStatefulTask::begin\\_loop(): A ssertion `!sub\\_state\\_w->idle' failed.\n Hmm, ok - so the thread that was \"already running\" this task was ThreadPool02 itself.\n If I understand this correctly, the summary is: ThreadPool02 is running the task \"DBusMethodCall\" at 0x5558128d70c0, executing state DBusMethodCall\\_start which does: \n m\\_dbus\\_connection = m\\_broker->run(\\m\\_broker\\_key, [this](bool success){ Dout(dc::notice, \"dbus\\_connection finished!\"); signal(connection\\_set\\_up); });\n set\\_state(DBusMethodCall\\_wait\\_for\\_lock);\n wait(connection\\_set\\_up);\n The call to run() causes a child task to be started - but that can't be added to the threadpool queue because it is full. Therefore the parent task (THIS task) is told to wait for signal 40000000. A timer is started, which expires and sends that signal (all while this thread is inside that run() call)\n That causes the need to run from the top, so need\\_run is set - but an attempt to start the task fails because it is already being run... \n Then the thread continuous and calls wait(connection\\_set\\_up) - going idle, leaves multiplex\\_impl and sees need\\_run is set - so it starts at the top, enters begin\\_loop and asserts because it wonders why it is being run while being idle...\n Now the big question: how to solve this...\n Hmmm\n Ok - lemme solve this :/\n One of the main features of a Task is that race conditions (when they exist, and they are unavoidable) don't matter: the result should the same, no matter which 'thing' comes first.\n Most notably, calls to signal() and wait().\n So, in the above case we have (abbreviating 0x40000000 to 4): wait(4), signal(4), wait(1). Where there is a race between the last two.\n Ie, it could as well have been: wait(4), wait(1), signal(4).\n In the latter case, the signal(4) would NOT wake up the task because it is still waiting for the 1, so need\\_run would not be set, and when the task continues running it would just exit multiplex() because it is idle.\n Hence, in first order I'm inclined to say that the call to wait(1) in the first case should reset need\\_run.\n Also, I wondered by I run into this NOW - and not before (been working on this project for years).\n The reason seems to be that wait\\_AND(4) (ok, it is wait\\_AND and not wait(4)) is new.\n In principle, wait\\_AND is the same as wait: it causes the task to go idle until a signal is received, but there are two major difference: 1) the bits set with wait\\_AND are required to see a signal (for the same bits), while -say- a wait(7) would wake up on signal(1), signal(2) or signal(4).\n 2) There are a requirement for wait(): it may only be called from multiplex\\_impl() and must always be followed by a break; aka, leaving multiplex\\_impl immediately after.\n wait\\_AND() however does not have those requirements. If it had then the above wasn't even possible: what happens is that wait\\_AND(4) is called and then WITHOUT returning from multiplex\\_impl, a timer is started that causes signal(4) to be called.\n I think that theoretically it is still possible with just wait(): it is not forbidden to have a thread flood a task with signal(1), so it is possible to call wait(1) and get a signal(1) from a different thread before we return, but NOT to \\also\\ call wait again before returning.\n I think the big difference is that the same thread calls wait\\_AND(4) and then wait(1) before actually returning from multiplex\\_impl. Aka, it did not return immediately after the wait\\_AND.\n That allows for this unique situation where have the sequence: wait\\_AND(4), signal(4) --> sets need\\_run, wait(1) --> sets idle, and then returning from multiplex\\_impl, going to the top of multiplex again because need\\_run is set while being idle.\n I'm still hesitant to rush and reset need\\_run inside wait however... and well because of this comment:\n // If the state is bs\\_multiplex we only need to run again when need\\_run was set again in the meantime or when this task isn't idle.\n need\\_new\\_run = sub\\_state\\_r->need\\_run \|\| !sub\\_state\\_r->idle;\n The 'in the meantime' means, since the beginning of this \"loop\".\n s/need\\_run/need\\_full\\_run/ as it were\n Seems to me that when I wrote that comment I had a reason to think that it is possible that need\\_run is set and idle too.\n However, as we know since this assert never fired before... whenever need\\_run is set, idle is not. At least, if idle was set at the time then need\\_run would not have been set. So, if both are set then that means that FIRST need\\_run was set (while idle was false) and THEN idle was set, all before returning from multiplex\\_impl.\n Yeah, that was simply not possible before I think... at least(!) when need\\_run is set as a result of calling signal. That function only sets need\\_run when idle goes from non-zero to zero as a result of that very signal. So, using the assert (that it didn't fire) we know we weren't idle at the start of multiplex(), then apparently we were because signal decides to set need\\_run, which means that wait() must have been called - but since that is only \n possible at the END of multiplex\\_impl, it is not possible that idle would be set again afterwards...\n \\thinks hard\\\n \\reads the three page long comment in front of wait()\\\n \\sigh\\ - really everything in the library is equally complex :/\n leaving out the comments... this is what 'wait(condition\\_type conditions)' does:\n sub\\_state\\_w->idle \|= conditions & ~sub\\_state\\_w->skip\\_wait;\n sub\\_state\\_w->skip\\_wait &= ~conditions;\n condition\\_type mask = (conditions & ~sub\\_state\\_w->idle & OR\\_conditions\\_mask) ? OR\\_conditions\\_mask : 0;\n sub\\_state\\_w->idle &= ~mask;\n Hmm, I think I got it working... my test application doesn't assert anymore and I get all the replies from the dbus server - but when I make the thread pool queue too small the applications stops terminating because the fd of the connection to the dbus server isn't closed anymore - strange :/\n ThreadPool06 STATEFULTASK : Entering ~DBusHandleIO() [0x7f1d8c001ef0]\n Yup, that line is missing in that case... so the problem is that DBusHandleIO isn't destructed.\n TRACKER : Instances of tracked::intrusive\\_ptr:\n TRACKER : DBusHandleIO.h:38\n TRACKER : Instances of tracked::intrusive\\_ptr:\n TRACKER : DBusConnection.cxx:56\n TRACKER : Instances of tracked::intrusive\\_ptr:\n TRACKER : Broker.h:60\n the problem is that task::DBusConnection isn't destructed...\n the problem is that the Broker isn't destructed...\n\n Still didn't find it :/. Seems my tracker is broken.\n p utils::InstanceCollections::dump()\n This does not show an instance of DBusMatchSignal, but I didn't see the destructor be called. Just,\n STATEFULTASK : Entering DBusMatchSignal() [0x555555e81670]\n Seems that that instance still has a reference count of 1.\n p &((task::DBusMatchSignal\\)0x555555e81670)->m\\_count.\\_M\\_i\n Oh! haha, I set a hardware watch point on that counter, and it gets decremented (and the instance destructed) upon a call to AIRefCount::allow\\_deletion(bool, int). That means it wasn't kept alive with an intrusive\\_ptr but with a call to inhibit\\_deletion() - which directly increments the reference count; hence that it didn't show up on the instance tracker (tracking instances of intrusive\\_ptr).\n Right, so inhibit\\_deletion() is called for every task as part of its initialization. So that brings the question to why not all tasks where destructed, which is kinda obviously because they didn't finish yet.\n I see being terminated: 0x55e2ff2504f0 (DBusConnection), 0x55e2ff250230 (DBusMatchSignal), 0x55e2ff250830 (DBusMethodCall), 0x55e2ff250ad0 (DBusMethodCall), 0x55e2ff24e240 (Broker)\n Hmm, I see six times a 'Returning task pointer', among which:\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| \| Returning task pointer 0x7f8b58001ed0.\n what? That 0x7f8b58001ed0 is on the stack?!\n Anyways, that is a DBusHandleIO.\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| \| \| Entering AIStatefulTask::set\\_state(DBusHandleIO\\_wait\\_for\\_lock) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| \| \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait(1) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| \| \| No need to run, removing from thread pool [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool06 STATEFULTASK : Entering AIStatefulTask::signal(1) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool06 STATEFULTASK : \| Running state bs\\_multiplex / DBusHandleIO\\_wait\\_for\\_lock [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool06 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::set\\_state(DBusHandleIO\\_locked) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool06 NOTICE : \| Entering AIStatefulTaskMutex::lock(0x7f8b58001ed0, 2) [mutex:0x7f8b58002080]\n ThreadPool06 NOTICE : \| Mutex already locked [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool06 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait(2) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool06 STATEFULTASK : \| No need to run, removing from thread pool [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n Hmm, too much follows.. I thought it would hang quickly or something.\n It is locking and unlocking a task-mutex a lot of times (because the 2rd party dbus library is single threaded and may only be accessed by one thread at a time %-/), and ends with:\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::set\\_state(DBusHandleIO\\_wait\\_for\\_lock) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool00 NOTICE : \| Entering Connection::handle\\_dbus\\_io() = \n ThreadPool00 NOTICE : \| Entering sd\\_bus\\_process = \n ... internal call backs from sd\\_bus here, handling replies ...\n ThreadPool00 EVIO : \| Entering RawInputDevice::start\\_input\\_device({{m\\_flags:FDS\\_RW\|FDS\\_R\\_OPEN\|FDS\\_W\\_OPEN\|FDS\\_SAME\|FDS\\_R\\_ADDED\|FDS\\_W\\_ADDED\|FDS\\_R\\_ACTIVE, m\\_epoll \\_event:{events:EPOLLIN\|EPOLLET, data:FD:0x7f8b58002280}}}) [FD:0x7f8b58002280]\n waiting for more input apparently\n ThreadPool00 NOTICE : \| Entering AIStatefulTaskMutex::unlock() [mutex:0x7f8b58002080]\n ThreadPool00 NOTICE : \| Mutex released [0x7f8b58001ed0] \n Oh, I missed, after the start\\_input\\_device: ThreadPool00 NOTICE : \| io\\_handled\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| Entering AIStatefulTask::wait(1) [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n ThreadPool00 STATEFULTASK : \| No need to run, removing from thread pool [0x7f8b58001ed0]\n And that is the last thing... a signal(1) is never coming :/\n right... so it doesn't finish because abort() is never called, which is because DBusConnection::terminate() is never called, which is because ~DBusConnection() is never called...\n which is because the Broker is never deleted... which is because there is a DBusMethodCall kept alive... which is because that doesn't finish(?) \n Nope that finishes...\n ThreadPool05 STATEFULTASK : \| Base state changed from bs\\_callback to bs\\_killed; need\\_new\\_run = false [0x55e2ff250ad0]\n ThreadPool05 STATEFULTASK : \| No need to run, removing from thread pool [0x55e2ff250ad0]\n but it isn't destructed after that :/\n I think I just saw the light... the reason my instance tracking isn't working is because I overload boost::intrusive\\_ptr, but DBusMethodCall is derived from AIStatefulTask and at some point I do:\n boost::intrusive\\_ptr parent\\_task(tl\\_parent\\_task);\n That is then put into a lambda, which is stored in a static container...\n Wew - I fixed it.\n In the end, tasks were kept alive by an intrusive\\_ptr stored in a lambda that was the callback of a Timer, and that Timer wasn't destructed. I now set the std::function that is the callback to nullptr directly after calling it and that fixes the issue.\n Still weird though that Timer object isn't destructed...\n Man, I run into the crazies things.\n Turns out that I wasn't removing expired Timers from the defered\\_tasks\\_queue, like ever.\n So, I add the lines:\n else if (timer.can\\_expire().is\\_false())\n defered\\_tasks\\_queue\\_w->pop\\_front();\n in the idle portion of the threadpool - when all thread pool queues are empty, then it looks in the defered\\_tasks\\_queue and \"expires\" timers that didn't expire yet.\n Well, up till the number of threads.\n Aka, I was trying to stop() a timer and when successful (that is, it didn't expire yet and now never will) then I moved the expire callback to another queue, popped the Timer from this queue, and in the end unlock the defered\\_tasks\\_queue and call the callbacks on the removed Timers.\n Now I added the above two lines when stop() fails.\n This leads to a dead lock:\n Calling pop\\_front() above() does indeed destruct the Timer, hence call ~Timer, but destructing a Timer isn't safe because it could be in the process of expiring... so at the end of ~Timer I try to grab a mutex that is locked between the moment that it is decided that the Timer must expire and the point where its expire() was called and all is done.\n So, it turns out that a Timer is indeed in the process of expiring, so this thread blocks on destructing the Timer - WHILE holding the lock on defered\\_tasks\\_queue - and the expire callback tries to readd a task to the threadpool queue, which is full again (this is a test for that) and then tries to lock defered\\_tasks\\_queue in order to add a new Timer back to that.... dead lock.\n I suppose that instead of can\\_expire() I need a has\\_expired().\n perfect, everything works now :)\n\n```" }, { "answer_id": 56352, "author": "Cubedspartan", "author_id": 51311, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51311", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "\"Good writers borrow, great writers steal\". Real-world hackers have already found ways to solve this problem so just copy them. They've already solved the problem of presenting the often mind-numbingly boring topic of hacking in an interesting and engaging way. So I recommend that you learn a bit about hacking - not from a textbook, but from something entertaining - and along the way you can figure out how to use their stories and oratory techniques in your story.\n\n1. [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnmcRTnTNC8&t=2001s) is ten minutes of interesting hacking anecdotes about breaking and entering. The first thirty minutes is about the tools that you can use to bypass locks. I and 2.5 million other people think it's interesting to hear about high-tech security bypassed by dumb and simple tricks. For example, did you know you can legally buy the keys to most police cars on the Internet?\n2. [This talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdHq3WfJgs) shows more conventional computer hacking. What's more important to writing is the title of the talk: \"I Will Kill You & Birth You\". What does that mean and how do you do it? I'll let you learn for yourself but the take away is that your readers are curious and they'll be willing to sit through something that's less interesting if there's a good set up and pay off. Chris Rock's other talk \"How to Overthrow a Government\" is another good example.\n3. \"Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker\" by Hovun Jitzeck and William L. Simon. This book is the biography of one of the most successful hackers of all time. I can't condense the writing tricks used in an entire book but this will give you great insight into the hacker mindset. Most of NevisMI's exploits were achieved by cleverness and a good understanding of social dynamics, not programming. The take away is that hackers aren't necessarily smarter or more knowledgeable, it's that they have the right skills and right knowledge to avoid* others' defenses. Also it's a compelling read. Who wouldn't want to hear about someone who was imprisoned without a phone call because he could launch nuclear missiles over the phone?\n\n\"If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude\". Your character needs to break into someone's apartment. What you're proposing is that the character goes into VR, hacks into their network, and scrubs through the security footage until they see a key that they make into a CAD model which can be 3D-printed, letting them unlock the door and walk in. A hacker in a movie would pick the lock. A hacker in an action movie would climb down the side of the building and break in through the window. A hacker in the real world could knock on the front door and walk right in. Hacking isn't about using computers or advanced technology: it's about bypassing defenses in unexpected ways. So you can use sci-fi tech and/or you can pretend to be a pizza delivery guy.\n\nI think that you'd be better off going crude rather then technical:\n\n1. It saves you from exposition. You might need to explain to someone the difference between a trojan and a worm, but everyone understands lying.\n2. It makes more drama. instead of having a character sit in front of a computer, they're forced into direct conflict with individual human beings with agency, motivations, and personalities.\n3. It's more relatable. Which of these sounds familiar: realizing that your target has failed to meet the basic OWASP standards, or trying to cover your ass when someone has caught you in a lie? Not only is it more relatable to your audience but it's also more relatable to you. The more real technology you mention, the more likely you are to get it wrong, i.e. the mistakes that I may or may not have left in my technical jargon.\n\nTL;DR: Just have them use social engineering to steal the admin's post-it note with all their passwords." }, { "answer_id": 56353, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "You have the same problems that fantasy writers have with magic, and that is how does it work and is it believable.\n\nStart with writing down the rules of cyber-space.\n-------------------------------------------------\n\nbecause if you don't understand your own rules then you can't express how they operate in your world, and your writing will be vague and unsatisfying as your characters do cyberpunk things in your cyberpunk world. And, that will result in your stories feeling less real and likely lead to handwavium and deus ex machina resolutions to conflict and crisis.\n\nThe important thing to keep in mind when doing your world building (developing your version of cyberspace) is that believability follows from understand-ability. This doesn't mean you ought to be defining precise technical details how your human-machine interfaces work, but that you can describe a consistent set of actions and gestures used by your cyber-cowboys as they interact with cyberspace and those actions lead to readers being able to imagine and predict the consequents of those actions.\n\nOnce you have developed your cyber-system, you need to make sure its not over powered otherwise your story degenerates into boring power fantasy. And it needs to be flexible enough that it can support tension and suspense. Just as characters need agency to be engaging and interesting, they need to face consequences for their decisions for there to be tension and risk." }, { "answer_id": 56354, "author": "Tamás Polgár", "author_id": 32061, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/32061", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "If your story takes place in a fictional, futuristic cyberpunk world, where technology is different from what we know, you pretty much have a clean slate. It's up to you to decide how the hacker community and traditions would work in this fictional world. It can be similar to what we have in the real world today, or completely \"Hollywoodish\".\n\nI actually have a published novel, a techno-thriller which pretty much revolves around hacker culture. The story is about an aging hacker who decides to rob a bank with a robot. But he's primarily driven by dedication to his trade, and traditions of hacker culture which he greatly respects.\n\nThis is what would define a hacker beyond all. Respect to the unwritten \"code\", no matter he's a black hat or a white hat.\n\nA hacker, first and foremost, loves technology and worships the Spirit in the Machine. Really devoted hackers are outright fanatics. Pulling off a prank, a technological trick, a \"run\" might be more important to a real hacker than the reward itself, or literally their own life.\n\nThink of hackers as pilot jocks who love flying. They are very disciplined inside, but they do crazy stuff all the time, and at first sight, they look quite the opposite of what they actually are. What they are doing seems crazy and chaotic for the outsider, but it's actually very precisely calculated and professional.\n\nA true hacker would never disrespect the Spirit, or another hacker who he recognizes as one. In this respect they're much like fighter pilots: they may fight to the the death, but shake each others' hands when it's over. They fly for flight, not to fight. The hacker also hacks for the hacking, and not for the reward, or out of spite for somebody. Except if that person disrespects the Spirit.\n\nA hacker never actually destroys: he only builds. Even if his activities actually destroy something, it's something that's meant to be destroyed, because it's tainted, bad, disrespectful to the Spirit, violates the hacker's perception of right or wrong. A hacker might write a destructive virus or malware, but in his own eyes, the world will be a better place if the target is destroyed.\n\nBut of course there are people who call themselves hackers without actually being one. They don't know jack shit about the Spirit, and just want to break and destroy. An outsider may confuse these with actual hackers. They don't know, or outright disrespect the Spirit. But without the Spirit they can never be good, even if they can still achieve something. Hackers have a lot of derogatory names for these: script kiddies, lamers, l-users, etc." }, { "answer_id": 56359, "author": "AnoE", "author_id": 23592, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/23592", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Simply don't try to write about real world hacking and hackers. There is zero chance to get it right unless you know what you're doing, and people involved with it in the real world will immediately throw your book away.\n\nIf you look at the popular Cyberpunk authors, when the genre was still around, you will find that they basically invented everything from scratch, with colorful language. For one, back then, the real world simply was not there yet - they had nothing \"real\" to really write about. And secondly, it is so massively more entertaining to write about \"ice\", \"decks\", \"runners\" and whatever else they came up with.\n\nSome argue that Cyberpunk is dead because the genre was about the fight of individuals against big corporations, in a nutshell; and today it's a moot point (the corporations have won, in the real world). That said, there are still modern authors who manage to write extremely interesting stories including hacking/hackers. They (at least the good ones that I have read) usually also just invent everything as they need it. They also do not spell everything out in excruciating technological detail - the reader is not supposed to be a hacker themselves, and for the reader the story is as mysterious as for any bystander inside their world.\n\nSo focus on bringing the wonder and mystery to the reader, don't try to impress 2021 real world IT persons." }, { "answer_id": 56360, "author": "Michael Gajeski", "author_id": 51329, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51329", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I would start out by reading a book called \"Ghost in the Wires\" that details the story of Hovun Jitzeck, one of the first people to be jailed in the US for cyber crimes.\n\nFrom my experience in IT and skirting the edge of what some might call hacking (I'm routinely tasked with making systems work together when they shouldn't be able to, often by writing software that takes advantage of issues in one system or another), the single most important thing about actual hackers like Mitnick would be curiosity. They are driven to figure out how things work, and take pleasure from gaining access even if they don't actually do anything with it.\nSocial Engineering is a big part of it also. Mitnick impersonated people to get information and then used it to put together a big picture of how everything worked.\n\nOne more critical piece is on system designers. Mitnick was only able to infiltrate the systems that he played around with for so long because the phone companies that he was exploiting used an outdated OS called VMS with known vulnerabilities. Lazy sysadmins and corporate cost cutting measures keep vulnerable systems up and running when there are better alternatives." }, { "answer_id": 56368, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "A lot has been said, for instance reading Gabxun and others, but here are some other thoughts.\n\nRoughly speaking, you can grade most organizations on two dimensions; commercial focus and security focus.\n\nOn one extreme is high commercial focus/low security focus. This is likely the kind of organization where you can walk in the front door, steal the CEO's lunch box, eat it at his desk and then have him bring you coffee... (And you'll steal the engineering plans for the next energizer bunny while he brings you the cream...)\n\nThe other extreme is low commercial needs/high security needs. This is probably the kind of organization where security is the main focus. Here you're not going to just walk in unannounced. You're not going to be left alone in there and you're not going to be bringing any electronic equipment with you in. Not that it matters much since the \"real\" data won't be reachable from the nearest networking socket anyway (at least not without a client side MacGuffin cipher descrambler... ok, just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks... what I meant to say was \"Nah\").\n\nGenerally, high commercial focus and high security focus are rare, because high security is costly and intrusive.\n\nMost hacks have a social engineering component.\n\nIt could be stress: For instance, the \"are you the naked person in this video?\" Facebook messages to make people click a video link or mails about lost pensions and security breaches that need to be handled provided with a nice login link.\n\nOr curiosity: For instance, if people find (or well found in the 00ies) a USB stick on a conference table and it had the company logo some alarming number of people would stick it into their computer to see what it contained. An even larger number of people would load a CD (now we're talking 90ies) with the label \"wage negotiations\"... I guess, these days it'd be along the line \"don't you know the naked person in this video?\"\n\nOr just general lack of attention: sending an email with an attachment that looks like something one might get sent to oneself so one opens the attachment... because the baby kept one up all night last night...\n\nIf you want to be realistic, I suggest not having your hacker trying the hard to crack targets, but as others have mentioned, go for the softer type of targets instead... quantity over quality...\n\nAfter all, on the other side of that e-mail offering huge rewards, there's a (likely not) Nigerian Prince that needs to pay his bills and feed his kids, so rather than spending months or years trying to do an insanely hard hack, most \"for-profit\" hacking is more about quantity—trawling for the stupid and/or ignorant...\n\nUnless your hacker is doing it for creds." }, { "answer_id": 56376, "author": "DavidT", "author_id": 51341, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51341", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "The core of most hacking is to exploit mistakes (in this context oversights are also mistakes). Broadly speaking people can be put in one of three groups:\n\n1. Engineers / Security professionals - anyone with (some) responsibility for securing a system.\n2. Users/Consumers\n3. Hackers\n\nI have called out users as a separate group for two reasons:\n\n* Typically they are far less knowledgeable than security professionals.\n* Sometimes users genuinely don't care about hacking. \\\\\n\n\\\\ - For example if a users system gets breached, but the hacker is only using the users system to attack someone else, it is possible it will neither be detected by the user or impact them in any meaningful way.\n\nIn an ideal world there should be no distinction between a user and a security professional they should both be knowledgable (and equally diligent about protecting the system) unfortunately that isn't reality. So we live in a world where security professionals try to anticipate mistakes made by both users and other professionals and put in place mechanisms to prevent hackers from exploiting them. This is similar to a castle with multiple concentric walls, the concept being that if an attacker breaches one wall, there is another wall behind it which will still keep the attacker out.\n\nOne can make an analogy between hacking and an election, again we can say there are three groups:\n\n1. Election Officials (trying to ensure a \"fair\") election.\n2. Voters\n3. Anyone trying to ensure a particular candidate wins.\n\nPut yourself in the position of someone trying to \"rig\" an election, how would you do it?\n\n* Fill the ballet boxes before they are distributed.\n* Add extra votes to the boxes in transit to the counting center.\n* Remove some votes from the boxes.\n* Ensure some boxes never make it to the counting center.\n* Change the hole punch machine so they don't line up.\n\nAn election official will put in place mechanisms to try to prevent each of these from occurring.\n\nBut one can extend the analogy to things which are not illegal, but still affect the likely outcome of the vote:\n\n* Incumbents vs Challengers.\n* Redistricting\n* Two candidates with the same name.\n* Multiple candidates representing the same party (splitting the vote).\n\nThere are analogies in the tech space for example, paying for a bunch of fake reviews to make your restaurant appear better than it is.\n\nIn short people design and build systems to achieve specific goals or only grant access to specific individuals. However those building the systems make mistakes and overlook things. Hackers spend time trying to find the mistakes, so they can exploit them for some kind of gain (even if the gain is simply recognition from their peers). If you set your story in a contemporary context there will be a group of people who find the lack of technical detail problematic - that may not be an issue for you - there are plenty of movies that have totally inaccurate representations of hacking that do just fine at the box office.\n\nIf you want to avoid that problem you will need to change the context of your story, for example:\n\n* Set the story far in the future where current paradigms don't apply.\n* Introduce some new tech that radically changes the way things work today - quantum computers that can instantly defeat (most) encryption.\n\nHowever you can probably still use the core concept that hackers are looking for mistakes and/or oversights that others have missed.\n\nWith respect to more general knowledge about tech and how things work, I would suggest limiting yourself to describing things from a user perspective: what was the user trying to do and what happened to them.\nIf your narrative absolutely requires you to explain how things work, you can always invent some new tech and explain how that works." } ]	2021/07/01	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56356", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51315/" ]
56,366	I wonder if it's alright for us to drop words like verbs, prepositions or adjectives for different subjects in the same sentence if repeated. Consider this sentence: > > "My son was born in 1975 and my daughter was born in 1982." > > > Would it be better or at least alright to drop the repeated words at all? Do we need any extra commas if so? > > "My son was born in 1975 and my daughter in 1982." > > > OR > > "My son was born in 1975 and my daughter 1982." > > > OR > > "My son was born in 1975, and my daughter, 1982." > > > If this is ok, how would this best play out with more than two subjects? > > "My son was born in 1975, my daughter was born in 1982 and my niece was born in 1988." > > > Would the following be ok? > > "My son was born in 1975, my daughter in 1982 and my niece 1988." > > > Of course, I would prefer to not sidestep the issue by rewording, eg: > > "My son, daughter and niece were born in 1975, 1982 and 1988, respectively." > > > And side question, what about the repeated words "my"? Can they be dropped too? > > "My son was born in 1975, daughter in 1982 and niece 1988." > > >	[ { "answer_id": 56381, "author": "Erin Tesden", "author_id": 48340, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/48340", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "For the first, this is the most organic: \"My son was born in 1975 and my daughter in 1982.\"\n\nFor the second: \"My son was born in 1975, my daughter in 1982, and my niece 1988.\" I added a \",\" before the niece part, that's more correct grammatically.\n\nThis one also works, but feels kinda robotic, guess it works if the person in questions it's very formal regarding their speech: \"My son, daughter and niece were born in 1975, 1982 and 1988, respectively.\"\n\nIn any case, take in consideration, is this for narration or dialogue? If the latter, remember people aren't exactly 100% articulate while talking all the time. Maybe they'll be too concise, maybe too convoluted, maybe what they said was badly structured. And they'll probably don't even notice.\n\nSo if that bunch of sentences are dialogue, any option would technically work.\n\nWell, almost...: \"My son was born in 1975, daughter in 1982 and niece 1988.\" This sentence reads weirdly, same with the second of the first group, regarding the \"niece 1988\" part." }, { "answer_id": 56493, "author": "TomAa", "author_id": 51335, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51335", "pm_score": 1, "selected": true, "text": "![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0E6fw.png)\n\nAs shown in the screenshot, I found a news article that omitted repitition in the form of this:\n\n\"My son was born in 1975, daughter 1982 and niece 1988.\"\n\nI guess it's grammatically acceptable to do this then ‍♂️" } ]	2021/07/03	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56366", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51335/" ]
56,367	I would like my writing to be sophisticated, but find it difficult. I think this is since I have trouble understanding sophisticated passages. So no matter how well I know grammar, I can never arrange words in ways clever enough to call them sophisticated. Since the problem is actually my reading comprehension -- and I find many passages of the King James Bible difficult to understand, though not because some words of its words are archaic -- I need to improve my reading comprehension skills. Let me just clarify that I don't mean to write in convoluted ways, but simply in ways sophisticated enough to delight myself and the reader. I do not know if this is possible, but since this corresponds to writing ability, and since the following is therefore an acceptable question, at least according to my hope, I ask you this: How can I measurably improve my ability to comprehend difficult passages, in order to improve my ability to write them as well? Thank you.	[ { "answer_id": 56373, "author": "Mary", "author_id": 44281, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44281", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Practice. Lots and lots of practice.\n\nYou may in particular want to take writers whose style you admire and write pastiches. Trying to do it is the best way to analyze how they do it.\n\nPick a number of writers. That way you don't just ape one but learn a variety of skills." }, { "answer_id": 56379, "author": "ncraig", "author_id": 51343, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51343", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Practice is important. So too is reading the works of others as a writer, observing the moves used by authors one admires. Like a musician listens and emulates players they like, so too a writer can expand their repertoire of phrasing by observing and emulating. Writing is composed of words, so building vocabulary aids in the precision of expression. Writing is also editing, and it is in the editing process that the ideas are honed.\n\nSometimes, sophisticated ideas and thoughts require simplicity and clarity of voice to effectively impart intended meaning. Personally, I find the more complex the idea, often the more I have to work at being clear lest I confuse the audience. For example, building nuance often entails stacking conditional clauses. In building such a case, grammar matters. One must be mindful where modifiers are placed or unintended meanings can be rendered from the prose.\n\nThough a treatise on basic writing, I found Shaughnessy's (1979) monograph extremely productive in my own craft. The example on page 132 in particular helped me rethink my own approach. I use it in teaching university level writing.\n\nShaughnessy, Mina P. Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1979. <https://archive.org/details/errorsexpectatio0000shau>" } ]	2021/07/03	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56367", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25421/" ]
56,371	I like to read and watch videos, documentaries and movies about topics covering a wide variety like history, ancient architecture, science fiction, fantasy, astronomy etc. These things take up most of my time. I started to read and watch about these topics just for fun but slowly and gradually this activity has now become an integral and indispensable part of my day. The problem is, neither do I possess good writing skills nor am I an expert in any of these topics but since it's taking up maximum portion of my day, I am wondering if there is a career where I can utilise this hobby of mine. Also, if this is not the right place for this question, I'd highly appreciate if someone guides me to a more appropriate forum.	[ { "answer_id": 56372, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "Self Development:\n-----------------\n\nI was reasonably sure I could never write, because I wrote some truly awful short stories in high school and college. As excited as I was by them, they sucked. Yet I still wanted to write a novel as a life goal.\n\nI also research and learn for fun, and put together very different elements of stories until I said, \"That's crazy! It's a fusion scifi Nazi ancient Greek Hindu culture with friendly cannibals!\" and it was so weird, I had to write it. Highly diverse backgrounds and knowledge gives you access to the fun little snippets of information that make stories feel more real. You begin to see the [common elements](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/56361/writing-the-other) in very different things, and can tie them together.\n\nAs I mentioned in [this](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/56318/how-to-believe-in-your-novel/56322#56322) question, your first novel will suck. It takes a lot of reading (which sound like it shouldn't be a problem for you) and practice to be a good writer. But write short stories to practice, and see HOW and WHY they suck. If you have people both patient enough with you to read your stuff and brutal enough to be honest about it (no moms), you will see patterns of what you're doing and fix them. You'll read with a different eye, and see that even 'good' novels have glaring deficiencies that don't stop them from being fun or getting published.\n\nNow, that's no promise of success. You may NOT have a talent for writing, but I didn't think I did either - until I did a lot more of it. Do you LIKE writing? Is it fun and rewarding? If it is, you can do it as a 'hobby' while trying to get things published. If you DON'T like writing, it's not a stable career, and I'd avoid it.\n\nI would suggest getting on [Worldbuilding SE](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/). A diverse set of knowledge will serve you well there. You'll get to think about weird questions in stories, and come up with fun answers. You establish a sort of online presence, and if you have great answers, you can ask questions and build up some fun worlds to write in. Publish a few short stories, write the crappy novel (for fun), then write the one you're really passionate about (when you know what you're doing)." }, { "answer_id": 56382, "author": "uhoh", "author_id": 48332, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/48332", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "> \n> Is there a career for a person in writing who likes to gather knowledge in multiple fields?\n> \n> \n> \n\nPerhaps not, let's find out.\n\nCheck first to see if you are watching to escape from working. If you are not able to put aside watching anything for at least several hours each day and focus on working then there may be no connection with liking to \"gather knowledge\" = watching stuff, and a career generating new content.\n\nTry some quick tests. Choose a time period of say one or two hours. Do not watch anything but instead try to organize some bit of what you have alreaduy \"gathered\" so far.\n\nWas it endurable? Can you do it tomorrow, and the next day...\n\nIf it seems difficult or challenging to do this, then it may not be a natural career path for you. It still might be, but then the next step is to identify what is making it difficult. That might be the topic of an excellent new question here!" }, { "answer_id": 56384, "author": "nick012000", "author_id": 28298, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/28298", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "### Youtuber.\n\nThere's a wide variety of Youtube video genres out there, and it's possible that you might be able to leverage your hobby to fit into one of them. There's science Youtubers that make videos to discuss interesting factoids, there's reaction Youtubers that make videos of themselves watching and reacting to other videos, et cetera." }, { "answer_id": 56387, "author": "joeljpa", "author_id": 51356, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51356", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "I know this probably won't answer your question if the end goal of it being a career is only what you're after.\n\nBut offhand chance you share the feeling of 'upgrading' your hobby into something which \"gives back to society\", while choosing something else as your main career, hear me out: I recommend considering editing Wikipedia.\n\nI can personally say I related so much to your situation (feeling we do not possess skills as a writer or communicator or being an expert, us types fit perfectly here). Though I'm a software developer by profession now (and love my job), I edited Wikipedia a lot as a hobby. Editing there scratched every itch and it was tailor-made for people like this, at least, I can speak for myself. I loved the feeling of \"giving back while I gained knowledge\" without any limits. The joy of maintaining an encyclopaedia, a sum of all human knowledge. It polished my writing skills as a good side-effect too, particularly on proof-reading and communicating complex topics to the layperson via writing.\n\nI felt a bit lost just consuming knowledge without sharing it like how I used to do before. What a noble cause I felt I was part of, among (just a few) thousands of others who did it, even if my contributions were less compared to the other dedicated editors. I only mildly lamented that it has no scope (and it's good that way) of being made into a career. Else I would spend my entire day doing that.\n\nThat's enough of me tooting my own horn now. :) Good luck with whatever you find yourself doing and I hope you end up liking it." } ]	2021/07/03	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56371", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51338/" ]
56,389	A lot of tiny ideas come to my mind but I don't know how to work on them and expand them into "valuable, satisfying, and worth of reading novels", and as a result, I lose motivation and give up rapidly. Would outlining help solving this problem or this is related to how much my writing skills are good?	[ { "answer_id": 56390, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Story Telling is hard\n---------------------\n\nand some people are naturally better at it than others, but like writing it can learned. Just as we, as writers, learn the craft of writing good narrative sentences, engaging dialog, and making our scenes come alive with a sense of setting and motion, there is a whole lot to learn about telling a story is satisfying and enriching.\n\nYour ideas, if they are anything like mine, get you enough to start a story, (the bottom of the leaf). If you think of the satisfying end of your story as the tip of the leaf, the story (plot, theme, character wants and needs) is what gets you from the start to then end. But, as you tell your story, you are having to make choices about how characters act and react to events and the other characters in the story. Each possible decision you make as an author is like the veins in the leaf.\n\nAt the start of the story, it's easy to decide what to have happen, but you only get one decision, and that send you don't one of the potential branches of your story. Every fork on the leaf, is a decision you have to make. But, unlike a leaf, nothing tells you before you make that decision if that will steer your story to its end.\n\n[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6gKj8.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6gKj8.png)\n\nBecause all of your decisions need to reflect the emotional and intellectual needs of your characters, and their reactions to other characters and events in your story. If the sum total doesn't hold together through to the end of the story, it's not a satisfying story.\n\nThis is why I think story telling is hard, there are such a huge number of decisions that need to be made and they affect the flow of the story.\n\nThis is also why I think outlining for any story -- short story or novel or series -- is really important. And, outlining lets you see your entire story before you've put in the effort to write it. If you can't find a way to get from your idea to a story that works and has a satisfying ending, then you might consider not writing it until you can." }, { "answer_id": 56393, "author": "Thomas F. Webber", "author_id": 51315, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51315", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "I'm in a similar place, but I think outlining is worthwhile.\n\nIn the end, I think discovering what sort of writing suits you best and can lead to the easiest flow of output is the best way to move forward.\n\nAre you a discovery writer? Then you might be able to continue expanding on your initial ideas.\n\nDo you thrive with a structure? Then building an outline for narrative arc, character arc, or story elements might be really helpful.\n\nYour question alludes to the desire to make something \"valuable and worth reading\". I think this method of thinking may trap you. Internal exploration is the only way to find a premise that will compel you to complete a full novel. Explore what ideas give you wind beneath your wings. Whichever method you end up picking, you're likely to need to revise what you put together before final edit in order to make it \"satisfying\" so don't stress too much about your first draft.\n\nOutlining is something you will have to do before the end, and it'll be part of your notes behind the scenes of whatever you come up with. But don't frontload that if it's getting in the way of your creative process.\n\nWho knows what twists and characters you'll keep in the final draft, right?" } ]	2021/07/04	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56389", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44982/" ]
56,395	The story I am aiming to write has someone thrown into action. However, that is not how they start off at the beginning. I definitely want to show someone whose bitten off more than they can chew, but prevails anyway. I have some good idea for foreshadowing themes, or what characters are like, but I'm struggling to figure out how to indicate that this book will end up fast paced from about the midway to 3/4 point? My concern is that, based on Brandon Sanderson's advice (paraphrased [here](https://medium.com/the-brave-writer/brandon-sandersons-best-advice-for-writers-9ab50d8e5d84)), I should promise some amount of action so the end of the book has some payoff: > > You make promises to your reader of what they should expect and progress those promises in such a way that there is a payoff from them. You pull readers in with your promises but if you don't follow up with progress and payoff then they won't be satisfied. > > > I'd like to promise action, without needing to make the first part of the book action filled. How do I do this?	[ { "answer_id": 56390, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Story Telling is hard\n---------------------\n\nand some people are naturally better at it than others, but like writing it can learned. Just as we, as writers, learn the craft of writing good narrative sentences, engaging dialog, and making our scenes come alive with a sense of setting and motion, there is a whole lot to learn about telling a story is satisfying and enriching.\n\nYour ideas, if they are anything like mine, get you enough to start a story, (the bottom of the leaf). If you think of the satisfying end of your story as the tip of the leaf, the story (plot, theme, character wants and needs) is what gets you from the start to then end. But, as you tell your story, you are having to make choices about how characters act and react to events and the other characters in the story. Each possible decision you make as an author is like the veins in the leaf.\n\nAt the start of the story, it's easy to decide what to have happen, but you only get one decision, and that send you don't one of the potential branches of your story. Every fork on the leaf, is a decision you have to make. But, unlike a leaf, nothing tells you before you make that decision if that will steer your story to its end.\n\n[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6gKj8.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6gKj8.png)\n\nBecause all of your decisions need to reflect the emotional and intellectual needs of your characters, and their reactions to other characters and events in your story. If the sum total doesn't hold together through to the end of the story, it's not a satisfying story.\n\nThis is why I think story telling is hard, there are such a huge number of decisions that need to be made and they affect the flow of the story.\n\nThis is also why I think outlining for any story -- short story or novel or series -- is really important. And, outlining lets you see your entire story before you've put in the effort to write it. If you can't find a way to get from your idea to a story that works and has a satisfying ending, then you might consider not writing it until you can." }, { "answer_id": 56393, "author": "Thomas F. Webber", "author_id": 51315, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51315", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "I'm in a similar place, but I think outlining is worthwhile.\n\nIn the end, I think discovering what sort of writing suits you best and can lead to the easiest flow of output is the best way to move forward.\n\nAre you a discovery writer? Then you might be able to continue expanding on your initial ideas.\n\nDo you thrive with a structure? Then building an outline for narrative arc, character arc, or story elements might be really helpful.\n\nYour question alludes to the desire to make something \"valuable and worth reading\". I think this method of thinking may trap you. Internal exploration is the only way to find a premise that will compel you to complete a full novel. Explore what ideas give you wind beneath your wings. Whichever method you end up picking, you're likely to need to revise what you put together before final edit in order to make it \"satisfying\" so don't stress too much about your first draft.\n\nOutlining is something you will have to do before the end, and it'll be part of your notes behind the scenes of whatever you come up with. But don't frontload that if it's getting in the way of your creative process.\n\nWho knows what twists and characters you'll keep in the final draft, right?" } ]	2021/07/05	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56395", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3986/" ]
56,397	I wrote a vision statement for a project using the term vis-à-vis (All X investments should be justified vis-à-vis quantified gain). A colleague suggested I shouldn't use vis-à-vis, and prefer simpler verbiage like "in relation to". The colleague is a native English speaker, I'm not (nor a French speaker). I'd like to write clearly, but also not too drily. I thought vis-à-vis is perfectly fine, and seems to appear commonly enough in Google search results. Would you recommend vis-à-vis for a global corporate-English speaking audience? And how would you recommend I check these things in the future?	[ { "answer_id": 56398, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "Showing Off:\n------------\n\nThis is old-fashioned and unfortunately kind of high-brow. Depending on the audience, they are likely to just not get it/understand, and you risk sounding pretentious. Unless you're trying to impress your reader with the sophistication of your writing, it probably is better to avoid this. It is, however, technically correct. In the right circumstances, it could work.\n\nThis is one of those language uses that is very dependent on using the language to convey meaning rather than words. English is full of this messy stuff, and it makes English a beautiful, colorful language. It also makes English a huge pain in the butt.\n\nThis might be a better question for [English SE](https://english.stackexchange.com/), and perhaps that might be a better resource for future similar questions." }, { "answer_id": 56402, "author": "mishan", "author_id": 48078, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/48078", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "Vis-a-vis has multiple meanings, which are:\n\n* in relation to (if used as preposition)\n* opposed to (if used as an adverb)\n* face to face meeting (if used as a noun)\n* a counterpart (if used as a noun)\n\nDeciphering which one you meant, especially for someone who is not perfectly fluent (and many natives as well), might be a nightmare.\n\nThere is a reason we try to use simple straightforward English in business settings, and that reason is to reach a broad and diverse audience with varying levels of fluency in the English language and present information in an easily digestible manner.\n\nIf I was forced to read flowery business prose containing gems like this, I'd probably silently curse the author and would not give him a nice review. Want to use language like that? Write fiction!\n\nI do love to read and listen to Nvikuspeara and Poe, but that does not mean I like to stop reading every business proposal to Google the meanings of phrases used.\n\nBusiness English (aside from marketing and corporate-speak) is there to be simple and to the point, to give you a clear image without the need of being fluent in English.\n\nIt's basically there to be a step up from pidgin English and waving your hands frantically to simulate your need for water/food/currency exchange/your desire to build a new oil platform off the coast of Belize...\n\nThat is, sadly, my definition for it.\n\nBut man proposes, nature disposes and in the end, the business communication will use whatever it can get away with.\n\nAre you writing a document for a company of English language majors, you yourself being one?\n\nGo on, let them know of your knowledge of the Queen's English.\n\nAre you a Chinese businessman who built himself up from a store clerk to a head of a multinational corporation?\n\nUse English first-graders in Central Europe would be chastised for.\n\nIn the end, what you can and can not use will be shaped out of your own limitations and the limitations of your audience." }, { "answer_id": 56404, "author": "Peter Wone", "author_id": 27924, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/27924", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "Depending on circumstance I probably would use vis-à-vis. But not, as has been pointed out, for a foreign audience.\n\nI once had someone complain about a sign I printed for him: Mater Misericordæ\n\nMe: It's not a printing problem. It's a Latin vowel.\n\nHim: Why the hell are you using Latin vowels?\n\nMe: They're Latin words.\n\nHim: What?! It's the name of a [censored] hospital!\n\nMe: The use of Latin is traditional in medicine. That sign says \"Mother of Mercy\" in Latin. The last letter is a diphthong. A diphthong is two vowels run together without a consonant between them-\n\nHim: [censored] me! I hire a computer person and get a foreign language expert. Look, the hospital administrators aren't going to understand. Print it again with a bit less university, OK?" }, { "answer_id": 56405, "author": "Tristan", "author_id": 47270, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/47270", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "Most answers so far have not addressed this specific context, and instead are addressing use of this phrase in writing more generally.\n\nVis-à-vis is not unusual as a piece of corporate jargon, and would not seem out of place in material produced for a global corporate-English speaking audience.\n\nThat said, use of jargon often serves to strengthen existing structural imbalances (only those already in the field have had the opportunity to learn the jargon, which then enables them to proceed more efficiently, progressing faster) & runs the risk of sounding buzzword-y; so it is usually advisable to avoid it where reasonably possible.\n\nSo, in this particular case, I don't think it would be especially out of place, or inappropriate to use, but using an alternative is probably still preferable." }, { "answer_id": 56408, "author": "Tiercelet", "author_id": 36843, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36843", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "I disagree with several of the previous answers on this specific phrase--which I find perfectly natural and ordinary, and would expect most speakers to understand. (Even just from context, on the off chance they hadn't seen it before.) But clearly there is some variance among different speakers' [idiolects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiolect) vis-a-vis this phrase... If there's a lesson here, it's to expect & be more accepting of variation in other speakers.\n\nBut I think the useful part of this question goes beyond taking a survey about a particular turn of phrase. The larger lesson is that you should always strive to be very precise in the message conveyed by your writing. Yes, even at the level of word choice, even at the level of prepositions. And especially in presentations, section headings, topic sentences, etc., which need to be both pithy and precise.\n\nThat's the real failing of your example sentence: All X investments should be justified vis-à-vis quantified gain. Sure, you could replace \"vis-a-vis\" with \"in regards to\". But that doesn't make the relationship any more precise--you're just saying 'these things are somehow related.' I expect you really mean that the investments need to be justified by some quantified gain. If you're trying to express a necessary and causal relationship, it gets obscured by the choice of preposition. So you're probably better off with something like \"Every X investment must be justified by a quantified gain\" or \"The gain from every X investment should be quantifiable\" or something else that more closely captures the exact meaning you want to express.\n\nThe real concern is not just \"Will my audience understand the words I use?\"--though that is of course essential--it is also \"Do the words I'm using accurately convey my meaning?\"" } ]	2021/07/05	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56397", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51362/" ]
56,406	I am writing my first legitimate fantasy (all the other fantasies I have written are short stories or practice.) The biggest roadblock for me is creating suspense and tension. All of the points where I want to create tension seem very boring and don't have much real suspense. 2 excerpts: > > The guards tossed Von into the cage, locked the door, and walked away, laughing to each other as they turned out of sight. > > > Von was only trying to protect Rho, as he was carted off to the mines, where no man has ever returned alive, for complaining. > > > It was his fault. He was the one who ate that cucumber, which, by Socline standards, was a delicacy. He should have known that Rho, being Rho, would be jealous and complain. > > > Something moved in his cage. > > > He was so deep in grief that he didn't notice it at first, but when it dropped to the ground, it was to his horror. > > > A spider the size of his head, with yellow stripes across its disgusting, hairy back. It was a Forncombius, the deadliest spider in the empire. > > > (I am trying to create some suspense in the time when he is contemplating and he notices the spider.) > > The newcomer casually walked out. > > > Lacerta had never tasted anything other than tasteless soup before, and the food of a nobleman was better than she could imagine. > > > The newcomer who had gave it to them had asked them to escape. Absurd. As much as she wanted to, how could they escape with Master Einsun and his nighttime fieldmast- > > > Somebody burst through the door, gasping for breath. Lacerta could barely recognize her with the redness of her face and the sweat that covered it, but Lacerta could tell that she was one of the master's entertainers. > > > "What is it? Why are you not with the-" > > > "They're dead. The master. His nighttime fieldmasters. They're all dead." > > > Lacerta, through the one window, spotted the newcomer, the stupidest smile on her face, her black hair flying in the cold winter wind, before she disappeared into the night. > > > New times indeed. > > > I can't seem to make passages similar to these 2 more suspenseful. Could I get some objective pointers on how to create and amplify suspense? P.S. I am not looking for critique. These excerpts are for context.	[ { "answer_id": 59184, "author": "ChiTownBob1", "author_id": 52156, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52156", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "It would be presumptuous for me to offer advice on this, but I would suggest that there's a vast literature of suspenseful novels, e.g. Poe, Conan Doyle, and many, many others since them. You can't do better than to read the masters, and make notes for yourself on how they do it.\n\nThey don't even have to be novels. Suspenseful movies like Hitchcock's will also give you a sense of how suspense is built.\n\nYour excerpts don't have suspense. Things happen to people, but we don't know what the people were expecting, nor how they felt or what they were thinking about when the things happened. The tension should come from the character wondering what something means or what's going to happen, so the reader can share their POV." }, { "answer_id": 59195, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Suspense is distinctive to other types of writing\n-------------------------------------------------\n\nWriting suspense is very different from writing other genres. It has features that do not come naturally to most writers. For instance, [Writer's Digest](https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/6-secrets-to-creating-and-sustaining-suspense) defines the difference between suspense/thriller, mystery, and horror as:\n\n> \n> \"In a mystery you might find out that a person was beheaded. This occurs before the narrative begins, so the focus of the story is on solving the crime. If you’re writing a horror story, you’ll show the beheading itself—in all of its gory detail. If you’re writing suspense, the characters in the story will find out that someone is going to be beheaded, and they must find a way to stop it.\"\n> \n> \n> \n\nThis means, rather than shocking the reader or keeping secrets from them, you put your cards on the table, tell them the world is in the balance and make it likely it will go down the drain.\n\nOne good example of suspense done in this way is the Jamos Gunr series. We know from the start or very early on the villain will try to end the world and only Bond can save it...\n\nUse your characters\n-------------------\n\nYou use your characters to create suspense by making the reader care for them and then put them in danger.\n\nYou make the antagonist into a supervillain. A super character with super abilities so we start wondering if even Bond will be able to stop them. (Ok, when I say super, I don't mean batman or superman, I mean a super character as in a super skilled, smart, determined character...)\n\nOf course, such an antagonist also requires a skilled and impressive protagonist.\n\nIn fact, if you want to make the reader care for your characters you need to spend serious time making all of them great.\n\nMake promises\n-------------\n\nCreating suspense is all about promising the reader all hell will break loose.\n\nIn fact, to create great suspense, spend more time promising violence and destruction than actually doling it out. And make big promises of physical danger as early as possible in the text.\n\nOf course, you need to keep every single one of your promises (unless the protagonist can stop the antagonist, but they should only barely be able to do that).\n\nIf you don't keep your promises, you'll burst the suspenseful bubble...\n\nBut the mayhem does not have to start in chapter 2, only you need to convince the reader that before the end it will come.\n\nPromises can be direct or they can be made using foreshadowing.\n\nAnother great tool for making promises is the cliffhanger.\n\nShow the reader what will happen\n--------------------------------\n\nAs mentioned above, suspense is created by showing the reader all the risks and horrors that lie ahead, rather than keeping them secret or springing them on the reader for shock effect.\n\nPut all the cards on the table and increase reader anxiety by showing exactly what will happen.\n\nThat does, of course not mean your main character must always know about the dangers. Only the reader.\n\nThis does open up the risk of making the story predictable, which requires fantastical villains and heroes that will attack and parry in a deadly dance throughout the novel always keeping the reader wondering how on earth the protagonist will counter the antagonist's attacks and then watch in astonished horror as the protagonist's best thought out plans are ruined by another brilliant riposte from the antagonist.\n\nUse many perspectives to show all the risks. You can even use the omniscient perspective to great advantage when writing suspense.\n\nLet the characters tell the reader about their plans and thus foreshadowing that there will be problems.\n\nConflicts, risks, pressure, and problems\n----------------------------------------\n\nUse time pressure and deadlines to increase pressure and conflict.\n\nMake sure the cost of failure is as high as possible.\n\nSharpen the main conflict and every other conflict in the novel to be as sharp as it can possibly be.\n\nWhile you should show the reader what will happen in order to create suspense, you should also try to be unpredictable.\n\nThis can be done by adding surprising twists and turns but also by never letting any plan survive the first contact with reality. If your characters don't think to develop a plan B, make them regret it, and if they do, make them fall back to plan C or D.\n\nAs the novel progresses towards the climax, increase the pressure, complicate things, and subject the characters to dilemmas and force them to choose between two evils.\n\nShowing suspense\n----------------\n\nTo show suspense limit violence and work with the promise of violence instead.\n\nSpend extra time polishing suspenseful scenes and spend extra words on them. Draw it out!\n\nThe perfect suspense story builds tension higher and higher until it explodes in the climactic moment.\n\nThis, however, can cause problems if the suspense doesn't last the whole way and bores the reader, or if the suspense can be kept high, it will also be too much and finally become background noise.\n\nTo solve this vary the level of suspense, for instance by dividing the conflict into steps with smaller victories and losses as the story takes each step.\n\nUse character thoughts (internal emotion) to bring up problems and causes for worry to make sure the reader also worries.\n\nCreate an air of foreboding to increase suspense.\n\nFurther reading\n---------------\n\nIn semi-order of \"importance\":\n\n* [Elements of Suspense in Writing: 6 Secret to Creating and Sustaining Suspense - Writer's Digest](https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/6-secrets-to-creating-and-sustaining-suspense)\n* [8 Effective Ways To Write Page-Turning Tension For Your Novel – Writer’s Edit](https://writersedit.com/fiction-writing/8-effective-ways-write-page-turning-tension/)\n* [10 Tips for Amplifying Suspense in Your Writing](https://www.masterclass.com/articles/tips-for-amplifying-suspense-in-your-writing)\n* [7 Steps to Creating Suspense](https://thewritepractice.com/7-steps-to-creating-suspense/)\n* [9 Tricks to Writing Suspense Fiction - Writer's Digest](https://www.writersdigest.com/improve-my-writing/nine-tricks-to-writing-suspense-fiction)" }, { "answer_id": 59197, "author": "Leon Conrad", "author_id": 8127, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8127", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "One of the best and most concise pointers to building suspense is Philip Pullman's distinction between surprise and suspense in 'Daemon Voices'.\n\nIn his essay, 'Let's Write it in Red: The Practice of Writing', he writes:\n\n> \n> It really does help to know that surprise is the precise opposite of suspense, for\n> example. Surprise is when something happens that you don’t expect:\n> suspense is when something doesn’t happen that you do expect. Surprise\n> is when you open a cupboard and a body falls out. Suspense is when you\n> know there’s a body in the cupboard – but not which cupboard. So you\n> open the first door and… no, not that one. And up goes the suspense a\n> notch.\n> \n> \n> \n\nIn my own work on story structure ([The Unknown Storyteller](https://www.leonconrad.com/lawsofform) project, in which I apply the undeservedly little-known work of George Spencer-Brown to the analysis of story structure), I've identified a dynamic structure that is ideal for building suspense.\n\nMarie Louise von Franz describes it as '1,2,3,Bang!'\n\nI map it to the saying attributed to Julius Caesar: 'I came, I saw, I conquered' (veni, vidi, vici). It's catchy. It's memorable, and it points to the essential qualities you need to build suspense.\n\nThink of it:\n\nWhy did Caesar set off in the first place? Because he heard a rumour - a piece of gossip - a report - it sets up a need for verification. There's doubt. There's uncertainty. This is the first element needed to build suspense.\n\nWhen he arrived, what happened? He was able to verify - to confirm or negate - the truth of the rumour for himself. There's realisation. There's acceptance. And there's a clear need to act. This is the second element needed to build suspense.\n\nWhat happens next? Previously there was confirmation/negation. Now, there's assertion or denial. Confirmation/negation are internal; assertion/denial, external. He takes swift, decisive action, and change occurs. Things are never the same again. The suspense has to build to a dénouement - one which ideally brings with it a new feeling of doubt, which sets up a new cycle of suspense.\n\nIn Pullman's example, you know there's a body in a cupboard and what's assumed but not stated is that there's a need to find it (the rumour/doubt phase - leading to the the veni phase). The search proceeds (leading to the vidi phase). The absence of the body is discovered (the presence is denied; the absence asserted). There's often a 'try, try, try again' loop in such sequences. Finally, the body is found (or something happens to prevent its discovery). This is the vici phase. Doubt is eliminated. But what happens next?\n\nNailbiters build and nest these cycles, finally resolving multiple patterns in close succession or in tandem towards the end of the work.\n\nKnowing where you want to get to at the end of a cycle or group of cycles is extremely useful. You can then delay the fulfilment, and rack up the tension by creating more resistance in the way you structure events, the way you present them, and in the quality of the events themselves." } ]	2021/07/06	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56406", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51373/" ]
56,415	I have a character that is a spy, and part of their job is sneaking around and getting into places without being noticed. However, in order to have conflict in the plot, have characters interacting to build character development, and the like, I need to have the protagonists and antagonists interact. If the spy character successfully Metal Gear Solid's their way through the entire plot, the antagonist will never even know they are there. But to have the characters interact would mean that someone would have to notices the spy character, which in turn makes the spy character seem incompetent because they keep getting noticed or caught, and the character is supposed to be portrayed as good at their job. E.g., in one scene I have the character trying to sneak into a meeting and they get caught by a patrol which leads to a fight that furthers the plot. How can I make this happen without making the spy seem to be bad at espionage? I know some spies like Jamos Gunr are frequently depicted as getting captured or getting spotted by guards, but I'm not sure how the narrative is able to counteract that and portray them as competent (I know externally audiences generally do regard characters like Jamos Gunr as good at their job, I just don't know the narrative techniques to achieve that). How would I go about making a spy character seem competent while still allowing for conflict in the plot?	[ { "answer_id": 56417, "author": "Kate Gregory", "author_id": 15601, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15601", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "You have lots of ways to tackle this. Some are:\n\n* they could interact indirectly. Having the antagonists talk amongst themselves about something done by an unknown person and how frustrated they are will let you do character development for them, without them saying things to the protagonist. The protagonist working with someone else to get set for their next thing, or reporting back about the thing they did, will also give you that space.\n* if the spy has infiltrated an organization, there will be all kinds of interactions with antagonists who don't understand that's what's happening - but the spy and the readers will.\n* if the spy nearly gets caught, but brilliantly gets out of it with \"these are not the droids you're looking for\" or \"look, an obvious distraction\" or some other spycraft, you can have an interaction that reveals whatever you want to develop about either the spy or the people who nearly caught them. Or their organization or whatever. Being nearly caught doesn't mean you are incompetent, the Big Bad will have a ton of scouts and guards and things, what makes you competent is that you don't get caught, or at least not for long and not in any way that exposes you.\n* if you need a fight that furthers the plot, does it have to feature your hero? Could your hero not tell a colleague \"be sure not to do X\" and then the colleague does X, and gets in a fight, but then the hero shows up and does some brilliant spy thing (uses some tech, or uses their undercover role) and saves the day in a way that rescues the colleague, reveals whatever more you want to reveal about the characters, and leaves the antagonists still unaware that our hero is actually the spy?\n\nWhen the premise of your story is subterfuge, disguise, and lies, you can't do things the usual way. But you can still do them." }, { "answer_id": 56424, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "I recognize the dilemma from my current WIP.\n\nWhat I've decided, much like you, is that having characters sneaking around and being smart and cautious isn't going to work (there's a reason some advice that a protagonist should never be a coward).\n\nA novel needs drama and the best way to get it is with a confrontation of some sort. (And as you mention, revealing and developing character won't happen in a virtual vacuum...)\n\nHow about changing the plot?\n\nInstead of having a plot where your character sneaks around in the shadows, make it necessary for the protagonist and antagonist to interact, perhaps through infiltration or a con?\n\nI think most \"spy\" situations in real life are less Jamos Gunr and more betraying people under their noses, in the same office meeting and at the same coffee break, and trying not to get caught...\n\nIt wouldn't be a confrontation per se, but done right it should give you much interaction... and suspense.\n\nOr change the character?\n\nIn my case, it was very hard to find a change to the plot that would make direct interaction easier, at least with all that smart and caution, so instead I decided to make my main character confrontational (and not so cautious). As soon as she gets into the situation, she puts her foot down and demands things. This, of course, leads to a confrontation and much more drama...\n\nE.g. while your character is supposed to be in the shadows they have an almost clinical need to \"dance near the flames\" or start an affair with the antagonist or befriend them etc. All to get \"that kick\" out of fooling them... or maybe the antagonist falls for the protagonist or needs to be their friend and not wanting to draw attention to themselves the protagonist agrees." }, { "answer_id": 56430, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "A Few thoughts:\n---------------\n\nThere are a wide variety of ways this has been handled in books and movies. Here are just a few of them. Appearing to do things that look a bit incompetent may just be a consequence of constantly having to improvise to get around bad situations, or it may be the spy is having to serve multiple incompatible goals/masters to make complicated situations work.\n\n* Chris-Cross: The protagonist and/or antagonist are double/triple agents, spying and double-dealing on each other. They may not know from chapter to chapter if they are actually enemies or allies. They speak, socialize, and interact in a multitude of ways without it being inappropriate. Both seek to manipulate the other side into inadvertently helping their own side's goals.\n* Neutral Territory: The story happens in various secondary locations where the two competing sides are not in control. The two groups may know of each other, and even have a friendly rivalry as they try to recruit each other's citizens, politicians, etc.\n* Mutual Enemies: Sides X and Y both hate Z. Your agent X and agent Y work together trying to undermine terrorist Z, and are aware of their actions due to the awkward alliance. This might even be historical - imagine two cold war spies who both fought the Nazis.\n* Unexpected Connections: someone on both sides of the spy relationship is in common - a family member (wife?), a mentor, an old friend. Despite the animosity, a different set of relations can make two people ignore certain details of each other while still being openly hostile (except when it comes to this one aspect of the relationship).\n* Debts: You saved someone I cared about, out of a personal sense of right and wrong. I now owe you a debt, even if you refuse to acknowledge it. This means the person themselves did nothing incompetent, but instead is dealing with the consequences of another's actions.\n* Incompetent Allies: Another variation on \"It's someone else's fault,\" your super-spy keeps having the local spies screw things up or betray secrets, leaving super-spy to constantly clean up the messes. The allies are valuable enough that it is needed to maintain their favor, and politics gets in the way of James Bond-style super-spying.\n* Incompetent Command: If your bosses order you to do something, you do it. Even if they are clearly wrong, or possibly doing it specifically because they are trying to undermine your career (you think: Maybe they're simply incompetent). So the most brilliant super-spy will be revealed when trying to take really bad orders and somehow make them work. Perhaps your spy even needs the other side to help them do it (via alliance, common interests, or sheer spy manipulation)." }, { "answer_id": 56442, "author": "Weckar E.", "author_id": 24863, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24863", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "These cases often boil down to one of two things:\n\n1. The unexpected, where even with all their meticulous planning, something unforeseen happens. If it could not reasonably have been foreseen, it doesn't harm the competence or credibility of your character.\n2. The trap-within-a-trap, where the character feigns incompetence to get themselves into a better position. They could br caught on purpose to be taken right into the heart of an organisation, for example." } ]	2021/07/07	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56415", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118/" ]
56,416	I'm currently working on a poetry book which is meant to be short in length. To help be gauge how much material is required, what is the norm for the length of a medium-format (A5 page size) book of poetry?	[ { "answer_id": 56437, "author": "D. A. Hosek", "author_id": 46988, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46988", "pm_score": 2, "selected": true, "text": "It varies by publisher. Poetry books tend to be either chapbooks (which can be anywhere from 10–40 pages with variations possible at both ends of the range) or full-length collections which are often specified as 60 pages or more. Yes, there is a hole in the middle. If your collection is meant to be short in length, what you're looking for in publication is to publish a chapbook.\n\nAssuming you're looking for a publisher, be aware that nearly all¹ poetry book opportunities are through contests which have entry fees. This is recognized as a problem in the poetry publishing world, but in the seven years since I've gotten my MFA, I've seen nothing actually change.\n\nThe friends I know who've published poetry books have all spent years getting individual poems published in assorted journals, a process which takes time, patience and diligence. I would not expect to be able to publish a poetry book in which most, if not all, of the poems had been previously published.²\n\n---\n\n1. A smaller number of books are solicited directly from publishers and an even smaller number are through open submissions, the vast majority of which charge fees.\n2. Even something like Ivika Dawson’s (awesome) When Rap Spoke Directly to God which is a single book-length poem, had excerpts published before the book came out. This was also, I believe, one of those books that came out of a pre-existing relationship between poet and publisher. I doubt that even a book as awesome as this one could have been published as a first book, or for that matter, by someone who didn't already have the reputation that Ivika has." }, { "answer_id": 59450, "author": "Terri Simon", "author_id": 19423, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/19423", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I see you're in Latin America, so take this with the knowledge I'm talking (mostly) the U.S. There are a number of small publishers (1 to 5 people, about) that work with chapbooks. I've had one published and one is in the process of getting published. I used Duotrope to do research but a google search on chapbook publishers would be of use. You can also self-publish on Amazon. There's a minimum number of pages but you can probably meet that." } ]	2021/07/07	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56416", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51388/" ]
56,419	It is often said that "a writer is a reader first, then a writer next." Therefore, I think it is important to know: what makes a novel boring? What are the biggest turn-offs for readers that don't let them finish reading a novel to its completion?	[ { "answer_id": 56420, "author": "Jedediah", "author_id": 33711, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/33711", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "\"What makes a novel boring\" is definitely the wrong question.\n\nThe spackle on the ceiling above me is not very interesting. Why? There isn't a reason. There's an infinity of subtly different possible arrangements of spackle specks or streaks or textures. But none of them mean anything, and no obviously random, empty arrangement could be very interesting.\n\nThe spackle on the ceiling would be interesting, though, if it made a picture or a pattern. It would be more interesting if it was a meaningful, expressive pattern. It would be profound if it was.. the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.\n\nNo single thing makes novels interesting (unless maybe that thing is \"novel\"ty). But what makes them uninteresting is what makes a spackled ceiling uninteresting - there's just nothing in the particulars that matters to the observer.\n\nIf you want people to be engaged, you have to persuade them to care about something. To persuade them to care about something you have to... Well, that depends." }, { "answer_id": 56428, "author": "Sciborg", "author_id": 33846, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/33846", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "There can be a multitude of reasons why a novel might be reviewed as \"boring\" or \"bland.\" In particular, this happens a lot with older books and literary classics, which sometimes are written in a way that modern audiences would consider boring - lots of exposition dumps, for example, and overly complex paragraph structures and florid language that can make your eyes glaze over.\n\nI'll summarize a few of the most common sources of boredom in contemporary books:\n\nNothing exciting happens until many chapters in, and there's a lot of talking and not much doing.\n-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nCharacters talk to each other blandly about uninteresting topics, move from place to place without much happening in between, and there's a lot of exposition, verbally explaining each person and their pasts, and long dumps of history and backstory. When something exciting finally does happen, it takes a hundred pages to get there, and then the characters spend a long time discussing the exciting thing and dissecting it instead of, you know, doing interesting things in response to the thing. If your novel has a lot of long, droning dialogue and characters sitting around doing nothing, it may start to drag and take on that unique tinge of boring.\n\nIn particular, be wary of the \"worldbuilder's disease\" trap that can cause you to spout paragraphs of useless exposition and accidentally bore your reader to death.\n\n> \n> This particular plant, F. pylori, was very well known for its sap, which had powerful medicinal properties to the extent of aiding in cardiovascular disease and reversing the negative effects of aging. It sold for about fifty gold in this particular marketplace...\n> \n> \n> \n\nYou can just feel the boredom seeping in, can't you? It's like reading a textbook. Don't write like a textbook. If you start to feel like a professor lecturing a student on the topic, cut down your exposition to the absolute minimum required for the story to move forward, and leave it there. Don't ramble on and make your readers fall asleep.\n\nThe characters aren't interesting, complex, sympathetic, or otherwise exciting to watch.\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThey might be cardboard cutouts without emotions or feelings, they might be completely unrelatable to the reader and stiff as a plank, or they might simply be unlikable and grating and otherwise incredibly annoying to read about. Either way, reading about a flat, two-dimensional and unlikable character isn't much fun, and after a while you don't really want to follow their adventures - you just want to put the book down.\n\nThe writing style itself isn't very interesting, or it's overly florid and pretentious.\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nIf the writing style simply describes things that are happening with a bland, uninterested tone - or, alternatively, gushes in excessive detail about every miniscule thing - it's not much fun to read. Both cases can cause a novel to be perceived as boring.\n\nIn other words, you shouldn't write like this:\n\n> \n> The sun rose. It was a pleasant day. The cicadas buzzed. Georgina went for a walk.\n> \n> \n> \n\nBut also, please don't write like this:\n\n> \n> The soft, glowing, gentle sunset over the family farm that had so recently passed into Georgina's possession seeped and oozed slowly and beautifully over the emerald-green horizon like a warm and luciferous eggshell breaking across the heavens, gazing upon itself...\n> \n> \n> \n\nYou can write as many passionate paragraphs of purple prose as you like about a sunset, but at the end of the day, it's just a bloody sunset. Move on.\n\nIn short, to summarize all of this advice: *Don't write like you're writing a book report about the interesting things that are happening. Write about the interesting things that are happening.*** That's the only surefire way to engage your reader and keep yourself from being boring." }, { "answer_id": 56432, "author": "Pamela", "author_id": 51412, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51412", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "The lack of two things in the book: surprises and humor (in reasonable quantities). Sometimes books are carried away from the very beginning, if not, then I read until about the middle, if nothing happens or the language of the narrative remains sluggish and gray, then in order to make sure finally that there is no need to read further, I scroll diagonally and that's it. Most of all, I am bored, it is a spill-over from empty to empty. Then I just can't read. Most often, everything is individual and depends only on the author (or translator)! I am of the opinion that a book should be interesting and exciting not only in the middle or at the end, but from the very beginning. After all, you can quit without reading it. A bright, catchy opening will ensure the reader's attention." }, { "answer_id": 56435, "author": "Chris Sunami", "author_id": 10479, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10479", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "A boring book is one where the characters don't have needs and desires that they are pursuing." } ]	2021/07/07	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56419", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37026/" ]
56,421	I'm writing a contemporary romance novel. The hero's name is Jovanne Diedi De Rossi. Other characters call him by a variety of nicknames, Jay, Jo, Jove, DoeZB... I chose to go with JD as the narrator, so I'd write something like JD checked the time and realized he was running late. I chose to do this because I don't particularly like the name Jovanne and I feel like it would be strange for readers to have to repeatedly keep reading it but is using JD worse? I feel like I used to see characters with initials for names in books/TV series in the 90s maybe but now not so much. I can barely think of any off the top of my head. DJ from Full House... I don't want to come off like I'm writing a 90s character.	[ { "answer_id": 56425, "author": "Sciborg", "author_id": 33846, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/33846", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "> \n> I don't particularly like the name Jovanne and I feel like it would be strange for readers to have to repeatedly keep reading it.\n> \n> \n> \n\nI'd hazard to guess that *if you, the author writing this character, don't particularly like the character's name, and you feel like the audience won't either, you should change it to a name that you do* like.** Possibly you have some kind of constraints relating to worldbuilding or the way that characters are named in your world, but even then, you are the author. You can exercise full creative freedom to make your character's name more enjoyable to you and easier on the page. Simply changing the name is the easiest solution to making the character's name less of a hassle for you and the reader.\n\nHowever, if you do really want to keep the name, using a nickname is perfectly reasonable. Just make sure you spend a sentence or two clearly connecting the nickname to the full name, before you then refer to them by that nickname going forward. It allows the reader to make the connection of \"okay, this character has that nickname\" and prevents the potential confusion of \"wait, who is this JD guy who just showed up?\"\n\nFor example, if I have a character named something a bit unwieldy like \"Nicholaus\" and I would rather refer to him by the nickname \"Kics\" in the story, I would throw in an establishing line that points out the nickname so it fits cleanly into the rest of the narrative.\n\n> \n> Nicholaus - or, as he preferred it, Kics - had that special kind of romantic track record that a bookie would call \"so far against the chalk that it falls off the board.\" Most people, in fact, thought Kics must have been born with a wrench jammed into the part of his brain that allowed him to communicate with attractive people of either gender.\n> \n> \n> \n\nHowever, some names don't really need pointing out. \"Ally\" is a very common and accepted nickname for \"Ullicof,\" for example, and \"Rimv\" is a common alias for \"Riwhurz,\" so that kind of nickname doesn't necessarily need the same callout." }, { "answer_id": 56426, "author": "Arian_ki", "author_id": 51270, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51270", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Well, I had the same problem you and I did to change the first name to something like Joe, Curliam, etc. and call him/her by that and leave weird words for the middle name and the last name. By the way, I suggest calling your character \"Rose\" or \"Jade\"" }, { "answer_id": 59048, "author": "Sabrina", "author_id": 52032, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52032", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "It could be obvious from context that JD refers to Jovanne Diedi.\n\nI have to disagree with Sciborg: it's fine if you don't like a character's name. You can still keep the name.\n\nIs the character a good guy? A bad guy? A bad guy who becomes a good guy? A regular Joe? A very strange person? Thinking about all these things (and how you want the readers to react to a character over the novel) would be more helpful when it comes to naming a character.\n\nIf you truly believe the name Jovanne would annoy the reader, maybe the annoyance can be a beautifully literary thing whereby an ugly name contrasts sharply with a character's likeability.\n\nAlso, a strange or ugly name might hook a reader.\n\nYou can also experiment with the narrator using JD to refer to this guy for most of the novel, but then switching to Jovanne at certain points for dramatic effect. There's a lot you can play around with.\n\nA name like Jovanne Diedi will stand out plenty and outweigh any possible 90's feel. (But initials as a nickname are still [current](https://www.reddit.com/r/namenerds/comments/ar3q2x/what_initial_nicknames_have_you_heard_used/), I believe.)" } ]	2021/07/07	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56421", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51403/" ]
56,423	I am an aspiring writer from Pakistan. It's a south Asian country rich in culture. Our cultural heritage and history is very interesting, twisting and multifaceted. However, I have grown up reading and watching a lot of American books and movies, mostly contemporary. My problem is that no matter how fun and interesting my culture is, it is Definitely Not American. The outfits, the live style, the buildings, the roads. Nothing is similar. Whatever story ideas that come to my mind are always set in an American contemporary setting. Since I have never been to America or any other country with similar culture, I don't find myself having enough authority to write my stories. I also want to write thrillers but the justice system in my country is inefficient and the whole cop culture of America appears so fun and interesting on the media. You can also experiment so much romantic actions between two American characters while in Pakistan it doesn't resonate. Even the names that come to my mind are 'Amanda' 'Sxfvii' 'Upam' 'Ray' etc. Sometimes I feel so stupid while writing these stories of mine because I am not from their culture. And what if the information I provide doesn't match with the facts? That will make me an unreliable writer. I want to craft amazing contemporary romance and thriller and South Asian societies do not offer that. Plus, I am not very much interested in my culture. So, this becomes my biggest obstacle. Help me.	[ { "answer_id": 56429, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Rethinking Genre:\n-----------------\n\nAlthough you want to write in a contemporary setting, I'd suggest that to overcome your concerns about realism and getting details right, write in a slightly different genre. There are a wide variety of fantasy, science fiction, and alternative reality stories that would allow you to take all the unique and special elements of your culture, and apply them to a much more 'American' style, with free cultures and different styles.\n\nImagine, for example, what a society of vampires might look at from a Pakistani tradition, living in an alternate future where Pakistani vampires influenced history, taking control of the British Empire. America might have lost the revolutionary war, until the native American werewolves helped them achieve independence. Or imagine an alternative country with a different history, a fusion culture where the practices and values of both blend together (to great dramatic effect).\n\nWith increasing levels of fiction, you can write about your rich cultural tradition, but draw on the aspects of Western culture you appreciate. I think of the book [When Gravity Fails](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Gravity_Fails), a sci-fi novel about an Algerian man searching for identity in a cyberpunk future. The culture is both deeply Muslim and deeply Western in values, and the struggle between the two is the stuff of amazing drama.\n\nSo if you feel like you have a lot to offer to the West with your culture, but you feel drawn to all the West has to offer, look to a world where you can control the rules and influence how reality plays out. Literary agents are hungry for well-written diverse cultural material, and if you have a society touched by a different set of rules, then any minor discrepancies between reality and your world will be chalked up to the very real differences as portrayed in fiction with some alt or fantastical element." }, { "answer_id": 56431, "author": "hszmv", "author_id": 25666, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25666", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "The good news is that from a legal standpoint, Pakistan and America aren't too far separate and both use Common Law for their court systems (The big difference is the ~250 year divide when the U.S. broke with British and added a codified constitution to further govern it's laws (the UK is today one of the few countries with out a codified constitution in the world).\n\nThe thing about America that baffles a lot of people is that the U.S. is freakin' huge! It is the 3rd largest country by land area (Behind Russia and Canada) and by population (Behind China and India). There are states that dwarf countries and people from certain states get stereotyped for certain traits like many countries do (I.E. All Californians are far-left Hippies, All Texans are gun carrying cowboys, and All Floridians are either old, crazy, or both. In reality there is a sizeable conservative base in California that is mostly found away from the coastal urban areas, Texas has very liberal areas in Austin, it's capital, and El Paso and has been turning less reliable for the conservative politics. And Florida isn't any more crazy than any other state in the union, it's just got some quality journalists and the \"Sunshine Law\", their equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act, renders most state government actions very open and accessible to the public).\n\nThe big challenge for many people not familiar with the U.S. is that they can't comprehend that sheer vastness of size, though regional cultures do tend to grow develop in all nations, it's just very prominent in the U.S. because of the size of the region.\n\nI've found that to best understand a foreign country, it's best to understand why the things they enjoy in their culture are enjoyed so much. For example, Americans often get stereotyped as being loud and rude by non-Americans. A lot of that is because Americans have a tendency to be open with what upsets them in part because Freedom of Speech Laws in the U.S. are some of the most liberal in the world (Which makes Americans very open with each other about what's bothering them... and very honest about it). The Rudeness stems from the fact that until the internet allowed communications with people from around the world, Americans didn't do much foreign travel (Only about a third of all Americans hold a valid passport... with an equal amount having never held one in their life and the rest just never bothering to renew it.) and weren't used to the idea that what they see as normal others will see as rude (It's not just a big deal rude too. In Japan, leaving a tip for the waitress is considered a huge insult. In the U.S., not leaving a tip is considered highly rude, even if the service was terrible.).\n\nA lot of behavioral attitudes of any nation are found rooted in their nation's history and identity. For example, one thing a lot of foreigners can't understand is the American Gun culture and specific members within that culture stating they keep their guns in the event of the U.S. Government going rogue. The response being that \"they can't take on the greatest military power in the world\", forgetting that the U.S. was birthed from a war where they not only did just that, but won (and that war was started when the government came to seize weapons from what was... at the time... the edge of the frontier...).\n\nOne option you could go with is to make your PoV character(s) Pakistani-Immigrants (American's love an Immigrant's tale because they usually tend to show America as a place with faults but one that is still filled with promise of a better life). That way you can have a voice for your own perspective and to help you focus your understanding and expectations in contrast to what you see. A big thing to remember is that film and TV depictions of things are not always accurate nor as exciting as depicted." }, { "answer_id": 56449, "author": "bvcolic", "author_id": 40866, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/40866", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Straight up man, learn this difference:\n\nA journalist reports on events, an artist invents. There is a difference, then, between a writer and a journalist. A journalist sticks to the facts to his or her best ability; a writer, an artist, uses facts but also twists them to forge truth from both fact and lies.\n\nDo what you want, but don’t feel stupid for wanting to mix things that don’t align with the whole truth; this is art. You want American culture in your work, do it. You’ve never been to America? Use your imagination.\n\nDo you need to interview American people to make it plausible? Maybe, but an artist, remember, invents.\n\nBe free. Permit yourself that freedom. This is your work." }, { "answer_id": 56464, "author": "Chris Sunami", "author_id": 10479, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10479", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "The general advice for writing a culture or a viewpoint that isn't your own is to do plenty of research. Ideally, you want to visit or live there. Second choice is to interview people from that place. Third choice is books and other media from there --which you already seem immersed in. Definitely find someone from that culture to read your manuscript and tell you where you've gone wrong.\n\nWith that said --I'd highly suggest you rethink this goal. The publishing world and the reading audience really both prize authenticity right now. It's impossible to outdo a native in that department. You're also competing directly against a crowded market --there are already so many other books from the viewpoint you're trying to emulate, most of which are written by people who have lived it. Writing a book from your own viewpoint as an American-influenced writer living in Pakistan could really make you stand out from the crowd.\n\nDon't think it has to be ultra-traditional, either. Haruki Murakami became internationally famous for writing books with a very American style, but set in Japan. There must be other Americanized young people in your country. Think about writing a book for that target audience. You could set it in an English-language school, or at an American-style restaurant. Or, it could be about people who live in Pakistan but WISH they lived in America (maybe a forbidden, American-style romance for two teens who meet up over the internet). Or write it as a fantasy or science-fiction novel, and you don't have to stick to reality at all. I personally make it a habit to try to seek out fantasy and SF novels by people who are NOT writing about white Americans. (It's nothing against white authors, but I've already read so many of those books --I'm looking for something different.)" } ]	2021/07/07	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56423", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51405/" ]
56,444	When writing a story narrated in the third person, I often find passages in my text where the narrator's opinions seem to conflate with the opinions of the character the narration is following: > > Detective Dashing took a long, hard look at the man before him. Despite the welcoming smile, it was obvious that this man was up to no good. > > > or > > The concert was making Wolef sick. The band was obnoxiously loud, the music resembled noises of a dying dishwasher, and the stage was lit brighter than a thousand suns. > > > My gut feeling is that this is bad style - it might've been obvious to Detective Dashing, but if the villain bothered to keep up the appearances it certainly wasn't universally obvious. Wolef might've hated the concert, but the rest of the audience was probably having fun. But is it really not acceptable in supposedly objective narration, or is it implied that if the narration is following a particular character, then the opinions and more subjective phrases are associated with that character's point of view? And if I decide I do want to keep the narration more objective, what alternatives do I have?	[ { "answer_id": 56446, "author": "Weckar E.", "author_id": 24863, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24863", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "What you're doing is entirely correct. You are taking a view on your character and making them the narrator. Just about every book does this to some degree.\n\nIn fact, the narrator could even be a character outside the story telling it through flashback or adding flourishes for comedic commentary. These often distinguish themselves through lines like \"He didn't know it at the time, but...\"." }, { "answer_id": 56447, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Omniscient or deep POV?\n-----------------------\n\nI think your samples can be interpreted in different ways. I write like this when I want to convey thoughts or opinions of the POV character, rather than the narrator.\n\nThe first sample (as well as the second) could be rewritten as:\n\n> \n> Detective Dashing took a long, hard look at the man before him. Despite the welcoming smile, he thought, it was obvious that this man was up to no good.\n> \n> \n> \n\nI don't suggest you add that \"he thought\" because your current samples are better. A \"he thought\" will add distance to the POV character, reminding us we're reading a story about a character instead of having a more intimate relation to a character that is thinking and feeling.\n\nFor deep POV (something a lot of successful authors do nowadays) I think a rule is to use as few \"he\" or \"she\" or the name of the character as possible in order to keep the reader \"inside\" the character instead of looking at the character from the outside. The drawback is that you might have to limit yourself to one POV character per chapter in order to avoid confusion (also something many successful authors do).\n\nIf you want to do an even deeper POV you could remove even more references to the POV character:\n\n> \n> Mr. X's face had stubble, maybe a few days old, but the expensive coat and the silk scarf indicated it was more of a fashion statement than any sign of lacking character. He smiled, tried to look welcoming, but it was a facade and his gaze felt like it was searching for cracks that could be pried open to gain advantages.\n> \n> \n> \n\nI.e. both showing the \"hard look\" and the \"being up to no good\" and doing it from \"inside\" detective Dashing.\n\nWorth noting when writing like this is that it's the use of the POV character's name and pronoun that you should try to limit, which usually means you name other characters by name and use their pronouns instead.\n\nObjective narration\n-------------------\n\nBut, with respect to your objective narrator, I find myself getting annoyed by authors that display very politically loaded opinions using narration.\n\nFor instance, I pretty much quit Hos Qlakcy after a passage in one of his books about Chinese infanticide. I'd been totally ok if it had been written as an opinion of one of the characters, but it was written with the voice of the narrator (i.e. Hos Qlakcy, the author) and it was highly racist.\n\nWhy would I want to give money to a racist? Yes, maybe it was a narration experiment gone horribly wrong. Maybe Hos Qlakcy isn't a racist at all... I don't know him, so I can only judge from his writing... I.e. if you're not a racist, don't do racist narration... If you need racism in your story, use a character, and hopefully, no one will think you're a racist...\n\nAs I come to think of it, you basically have two options here. Either use an objective narrator and steer clear of things your reader might dislike you for, or use a strong-voiced subjective narrator the reader can easily identify as another character in the story." }, { "answer_id": 56451, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "An omniscient narrator does not need to be objective, but ...\n-------------------------------------------------------------\n\nthat elevates your narrator to be one of your characters, who by virtue of their prominent position serve as the anchor about which your story revolves.\n\nSince the narrative text is typically about 33% to 50% of every scene, a wise cracking opinionated non-POV character exercises a great deal of sway over your story which can easily overwhelm the presence of your main POV characters whom you want the readers to root for or against, to sympathize with and generally invest in.\n\nMy opinion is that it takes a very skilled story teller to keep the balance so the narrator doesn't dominate the story but adds nuance and suspense that makes the POV character's experience more intense and engaging.\n\nWhen I think of an example of an omniscient and opinionated narrator, I think \"The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Universe\" by Douglas Adam. The narrator is unnamed and hilarious and engaging, but doesn't take away from my interest in Arthur Dent, the story's protagonist.\n\nGenerally, omniscient narrators like those used in \"Dune\" and \"Lord of The Rings\" are neutral. The narrator in \"The Hobbit\" starts a little whimsical, but turns neutral as the stakes of the story rise. I suspect there is something important behind Tolkien's decision to affect that shift in tone in that story, but I'm not clever enough, yet, to figure it out." } ]	2021/07/09	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56444", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5374/" ]
56,456	Do you have to explain why you're using German and Latin names in a novel? Let's say it's a fantasy setting and you use German and Latin names for your cities. Do you have to explain any of it, or you can do whatever you want. What's the best way to go about this, because it seems some novels don't comment on the origin of the words and use German and Latin name even if it doesn't really make sense in their fantasy world.	[ { "answer_id": 56457, "author": "Sciborg", "author_id": 33846, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/33846", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "No.\n---\n\nAs with most things when it comes to writing, you are the author, and you can make whatever worldbuilding decisions you want without having to justify all of them. If your characters all have traditionally German and Latin names, then that's what they have. If they have Asian, African or French names, that's what they have. That's all there is to it.\n\nThis is somewhat related to the \"all of the characters speak English\" problem that comes up in fantasy writing. In a lot of fantasy novels, there is no equivalent real-world methodology by which the English language would develop in the world, and yet all the characters speak English and name things with English words (\"the City of Tears\", \"the Last Dragon\", etc.). But the readers don't really think about that or care, because having every single character speak a deliberately confusing, non-English language that fits with the setting and that the reader has to learn to understand the novel would be overly demanding of the reader. So we have a certain suspension of disbelief that comes into play that allows us to say, \"well, there's no way the development of the English language could really make sense in this world, but the novel is written in English for my enjoyment, so I can overlook it.\" (Some authors will also imply that the characters are speaking a non-English language, but it's just being translated into English for the sake of the reader, which is an equally valid approach.)\n\nAll of this is to say that you don't need to explain every minute naming choice you make, and most authors don't unless it is directly relevant to the plot at hand, because it would just bog the novel down with unnecessary details." }, { "answer_id": 56458, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "No, But Be Careful When Using Invocation:\n-----------------------------------------\n\nI can't really dispute Sciborg's answer, but I do think it deserves an addendum. The use of German or Latin place names, characters, etc. can be completely coincidental, OR it can be used intentionally to create color for your setting. Using names of a places and people from a certain culture tends to evoke thoughts and feelings about that culture in the minds of your readers.\n\nLike it or not, a bunch of Latin names will evoke the Roman empire, or possibly the old Catholic church. French will evoke bards and minstrels, Japanese will evoke shoguns and samurai, and German has a complex history I'm personally well aware of and evoke as needed to create a setting. So if you evoke a certain language, you create an expectation in your readers that the society those words are used in will in some ways match either the true culture OR a stereotype of that culture that those words represent.\n\nIf you are unaware of this effect, you will offend people who may identify with that culture, or be dismissed by people who feel you are ignorant of the culture you are evoking. You are also missing a golden opportunity to add a rich layer of color to your story if you fail to exploit this as you write. Be aware of the flavor of the setting you are creating, and add these words and names to create a world where people already anticipate the setting. But if you do this, be well schooled in the deeper meanings of the invocation you are casting. Nothing is worse for a word wizard than to cast a spell with words and have it go awry like the Sorcerer's Apprentice." } ]	2021/07/11	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56456", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
56,460	How can I write a nightmare scene without making readers aware that it is indeed a nightmare and not something that is really happening to the character?	[ { "answer_id": 56462, "author": "Chris Sunami", "author_id": 10479, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10479", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "All you have to do is write it as though it was really happening.\n\nHowever, you should be aware that many readers strongly dislike it when you fool them in this way --there has to be a strong reason for doing it, otherwise it feels like a cheap parlor trick, and can damage suspension of disbelief." }, { "answer_id": 56468, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Relating Dreams and Nightmares as real life scenes in your stories are an over used trope. We can thank all those writers who came before us to stripping the trees of the low hanging fruit to tell their stories.\n\nIf the trope is important to your story, then by ensuring that your readers know its is a dream you can refute any complaints you are using an over wrote trope.\n\nIf you want you narrative to be free of distancing statements like last night I dreamt … you can have your character relate that they always dream of something specific — unicorns or candy corn or rubber washing gloves. They should react to that observation in some way that reveals plot or character. Then you can have those specific elements show up in your dream scenes and they will clue your readers in to that fact that they are in a dream or nightmare." }, { "answer_id": 56469, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Weirdness factor:\n-----------------\n\nI've watched and read a lot of messed up stuff. Chrac isn't wrong, in that you can certainly write very realistic dreams. But is that really what you want to do? I think of The Illustrated Man, Inception, or Brazil, and the surreal qualities of the settings in these works are such that the lines between dream and reality blur. Eventually, you're not even sure if it matters.\n\nI have a character who dreams about memories, but sometimes it's not HER memories (she has a ghost). Other times, they are dreams, but premonitions. Other times, they are symbolic and sent as messages. Unfortunately, you usually know they are SOME kind of dream, but not how 'real' they are. The character also hallucinates sometimes (and sometimes the hallucinations reveal a deeper reality, making them more real than reality), so it gets murky. But short of having reality be a slippery slope for the character, readers don't want to be tricked into thinking dreams are real. The best I can suggest is to make the character's reality messed up enough that the character isn't sure what's real.\n\nAltered mental states (I'm leery of 'mental illness' as a tag) allow your character to inhabit a very strange reality. You can portray that reality to your reader. Sometimes, their dreams might be more real than their reality (depending on what genre you're writing in).\n\nVirtual reality is another popular approach to this. Once in a virtual reality, you can never be 100% sure your character has left the virtual reality. There's always the nagging possibility that something (or everything) is just a construct of the virtual reality." } ]	2021/07/12	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56460", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44982/" ]
56,461	in my short story the antagonist is someone confident and street-smart who is hiding their gambling addiction from a friend staying with them, as they are looking to take advantage of their friend (they pretend they have a job at the casino, etc). My question is how do I decide how far the antagonist is willing to go? For example, are they stealing just from their friend or also involved in organized crime or in serious debts to loan sharks and so on. I think it would be best for the antagonist to make up with the main character at the end, but I don't want to make them do so much bad that this is impossible. I also worry that if the antagonist makes too few mistakes, the whole thing will be anti-climactic (it is set in Vegas). (For more info about the story, see the [previous question](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/56332/deciding-potential-scenes-and-keeping-the-tension-in-my-short-story) I asked).	[ { "answer_id": 56463, "author": "Alexander", "author_id": 22990, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/22990", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Looks like to want your antagonist to get redemption and turn to good. This is a relatively common theme in fiction.\n\nYou need to think not just the level of badness your antagonist is going to reach, but the whole character arc for this antagonist.\n\n1. What are those bad things that this character is doing? Is there a relatable explanation for it?\n2. What are the good traits of this character? There must be some, they can't just magically appear after the climax;\n3. What can prompt the character to rethink bad behavior and turn to good?\n\nFor the \"level of badness\", for your story it looks like everything is about the money. Money is something that can be returned or repaid. Or not, if you like to turn your story into something like \"Ocean's Eleven\"." }, { "answer_id": 56467, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "As bad as they can be - except for that last thing:\n---------------------------------------------------\n\nYou need to make your antagonist as bad as you can make them. Nothing is too slimy and scuzzy for them to do to get what they want. Except for that one thing.\n\nThe one thing will be very personal and intimate to the antagonist. It will be best revealed at the climax, where the antagonist has a choice of betraying the one thing they absolutely can't bring themselves to do, or being successful. To redeem the antagonist, they must choose of their own free will to give up success in exchange for their last principles.\n\nThe form of that one thing is, unfortunately, so specific to the character that it's impossible for me to tell you what is is. In the movie Hannibal, Hannibal Lecter would rather cut off his own hand than hurt Clarice. Maybe the antagonist is reminded of a betrayal by his mother from childhood, and success means recapitulating that same betrayal. You know the character, and must decide what line they are unable to push themselves to cross in order to achieve their goals. Then ask them to cross it." }, { "answer_id": 56503, "author": "Sadie", "author_id": 51495, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51495", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Just to add to what others have said already, it might be helpful to give the friend a reason to want to forgive the antagonist, no matter how egregious his deeds. Like they go way back to toddlerhood, have seen each other through some extraordinary event that creates a unique bond, or the friend feels they owe them a debt of gratitude." } ]	2021/07/12	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56461", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51282/" ]
56,471	Along with my first fantasy novel, I am starting to delve into horror, and I'm starting to sketch out an outline of a horror story (I have decided no gross-out today). If it helps, the story is about a man who was attacked by a demon. The man begged for his life, and the demon accepted, but the demon made the man immortal, and every time he came in contact with a friend, family member, or anyone he knew or loved, the demon would be sitting there, staring at him, right before it killed them. The man is eventually forced to isolate himself in a box, essentially be buried alive, to stop everyone he knows from dying, so he spends billions of years trapped in a box, nearly forever. But, as far as actual writing goes, I have no idea where to start (or end, for that matter) and the small sketches I do have are boring, non-suspenseful, and sound more like a children's story than anything related to horror. Where do you even start with horror? How do you create the feeling of fear and dread that keeps you up at night in the readers (without disgust), while also maintaining interest throughout the entire story?	[ { "answer_id": 56472, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "It got closer and closer, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.\n-------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nIf you don't want gory horror, then fundamentally horror is about losing control and a sense of violation. For intellectual horror to work, you strip away people's ability to deal with the things in their lives they must deal with.\n\nA horror story could be as simple as an old woman who has fallen in the kitchen and can't reach the phone. As long as you can keep adding levels of suspense and anxiety to the situation, ratcheting up the levels, it keeps getting more horrific. The old woman has a bit of food and water. Then these are gone. She has no bathroom and soils herself. She dwells on how she will be taken from her beloved home and put in a nursing home. She's angry with herself for her failure to get an emergency button. The injury she suffered falling gets worse. Mice become threats as she feels them scuttle over her when she's weak and asleep. Her son was supposed to put out traps, but didn't. Finally, they start biting her and there's nothing she can do to stop it. She's weaker and weaker, more and more hurt. Finally, her nephew arrives (who she trusts and has put in her will), and rather than help her, he leaves so she can die and he can inherit her house. Then the mice come back out, staring at her.\n\nHorror takes our lack of control over things in our lives, the things we feel helpless in the face of, and our deep-seated fears, then it keeps adding new levels of badness. The best horror story I read ([Survivor Type](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_Type) by Spepfuj Kunw) was a short story where a former surgeon is the sole survivor of a shipwreck, stuck on a barren rock in the ocean with a kilo of heroin he was smuggling. He injures himself trying to catch a bird to eat, amputates his foot, then eats the foot in desperation. Finally he starts amputating more and more of himself to stay alive.\n\nThe man started out a dishonored surgeon, desperate enough to be smuggling heroin, then placed in a shipwreck, abandoned on a rock, starving, then crippled, and finally forced to slowly eat himself. All in the course of (I think) 15-20 pages.\n\nAt each step, you can sympathize with the person, understand their pain, and move on with the story. Barring supernatural horror, each step is possible but unfortunate. But the levels keep needing to be amped up with each step. The violations can be physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. Ideally, they are all of the above. And unlike a traditional story, you don't get to solve your problems. If you do solve a problem, the solution is it's own terror OR is replaced by two new ones as soon as it's fixed. Then it's up to you if you want a happy ending. But the standards of happy are pretty low in a horror story." }, { "answer_id": 56473, "author": "hszmv", "author_id": 25666, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25666", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Typically horror starts with the ordinary world. Establish your character's lives and personalities. This is the start of a typical day... however there's an element that is \"wrong\" both to the protagonist and the hero. As their typical life wears on the \"wrong\" thing becomes more and more noticeable... It's a slow creep until the nature of the antagonistic force becomes more menacing... then it's a matter of the dramatic reveal.\n\nWhile not a hard rule, and there are certain violators, most horror films will spend about 40 to 60 minutes before the audience gets to see \"The Monster\" and most films will typically run from 90 to 120 minutes... with 96.4 minutes being the average run time in 2018. Often called \"The Jaws principle\", the longer the monster is kept from the viewers, the more scary it becomes, because ultimately fear of the unknown is very compelling threat (this principle is so named after the film \"Jaws\" and Steven Spielberg's dislike of the Shark Prop Bruce, which he felt was laughable... and was very expensive to remake... so he decided to limit the shark's on screen visibility, with only small portions of the shark being seen until the very climax... and the film was scary because of it.).\n\nThis isn't a hard rule, however, as Terminator had the titular villain quite visible but no one knew why he was doing what he was doing... it was a fantastical explanation to a very real threat of a lone gunman out in your neighborhood possibly targeting you. The real build up was to the explanation of the Terminator and the horror of his true nature: There was nothing you could do to stop it from trying to kill you. Terminator 2 was even quicker to reach this point, both because the monster's set up was almost identical... save for the fact that the audience was now in for a surprise: The \"monster\" from the first film was now a hero... and the new guy who nobody knew was an even worse monster. It helped that here, the \"warning signs\" were hidden if you go back and do a rewatch of the film. (Robert Patrick's character noticeably lacked scars, something in the first film was focused on to highlight the nature of the hero and his biological nature in contrast to the villain and his artificial one.)." }, { "answer_id": 56483, "author": "CaptainSkyfish", "author_id": 51478, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51478", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Different authors go about this in different ways. You mentioned that your sketches sound like children's stories instead of horror. But children's stories actually are the basis for a massive amount of horror, with the difference being the mood of the writing.\n\nWhat's the difference between a story where a baby girl is kidnapped from loving parents, locked up in a cold stone room, then spends her youth having a witch lasciviously rubbing the girl's hair all over her body, and Disney's Rapunzel?\n\nWell, the singing mostly.\n\nBut also the sun, the hopefulness, the friends, the heart. In short, the voice of the author. It's not the events, it's the style.\n\nWhen I was first learning to write horror, I had to find an author whose style I understood, to see how they made that transformation from kid's story to adult scaring. In other words, the right teacher. Whether that is King, Lovecraft, Simmons, Mattasig, Hodgeson, Cahqizter, they all do it very differently.\n\nFor you, I kind of suspect Onyelo Cirsem might be the one. Her focus is exactly on making fairy tales modern and scary." }, { "answer_id": 56488, "author": "Deschele Schilder", "author_id": 51464, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51464", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "You can start with the most horrific description of hell itself to shock the reader with. It then turns out to be the dream of the main character. The I perspective works best but switching between ffirst and third person can be effective too. Even the second person, adressing the reader himself.\n\nAfter the schock, normal life continues. The normal life then is slowly infiltrated by elements that were seen in the horror vision. Even normal events or objects can get an emotional load when seen in connection with the initial vision.\n\nYou can work towards a climax of any kind. It can be a real horrific one, in contrast to the dreamlike start. It can be a dreamlike one giving a symmetric touch.\n\nThe end must of course not be happy or open for horrific speculation at least." }, { "answer_id": 56490, "author": "Bill in Kansas City", "author_id": 51484, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51484", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "I'm working on a horror novel now, and I've found that it helps to envision the terrible scenes like a movie I'm watching. What would be scary to me to watch?\n\nIn one scene, I have a character \"Joe\" forced to commit a murder. Just relating that fact wouldn't be particularly horror-filled, so I let the other characters in the scene be horrified, one at a time. Start with Joe: he contemplated the weapon; to Joe's girlfriend: she begged him to put the weapon down; back to Joe: he felt the pressure to act building; to the sheriff: you don't have to do this, son; to the victim: he prayed to be released from this nightmare; back to Joe...\n\nAnd so on. Seeing the horror coming and being unable to stop it. Knowing that the horror is inevitable. King does this a lot: \"Joe stepped up to the mic, not knowing he had only ninety seconds left to live.\" Now the reader knows the horror is coming, and the next ninety seconds are (if we care about Joe) excruciating.\n\nSpend time on the page in your characters heads and senses, and don't be afraid to draw it out. What do they see, smell, taste in that moment. \"The man pulled the knife across his chest. Joe closed his eyes and tried not to see: it wasn't just the blood, though the coppery taste at the back of his mouth was bad enough. It was the sound of the blade, not quite sharp enough, skimming across living bone. It was the man's labored breathing, a sound like the edge of a scream.\"\n\nThere's an old recording by Arch Obler called \"Drop Dead: An Exercise in Horror.\" It's a great listen and explores these very thoughts through a series of radio shows. [You can listen to it here.](https://archive.org/details/lp_drop-dead-an-exercise-in-horror_arch-oboler)." } ]	2021/07/13	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56471", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51457/" ]
56,474	Before I start with writing my story, I would of course like to have some OC's (original characters --ones not taken from an existing work). I am struggling to make OC's that I don't hate. I somehow end up always making them similar to each other, a way too perfect person or just a better version of myself. How do I create a good OC that I don't hate? I would like some advice.	[ { "answer_id": 56475, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Perfection is flawed:\n---------------------\n\nThere was a study done of the traits that people found attractive, even subtle differences. But when they took all the most attractive features and placed them on one person's image, it was the most non-descript person you've ever seen.\n\nThe same thing is true of character development. A strong and true character with flawless skills, body, and impeccable performance is about as inspired as wet cardboard. You could have a character like that, but then it won't be the main character, because no one wants to read that. Cindy Crawford would be dull without the mole. She'd be pretty, but not notable. It's the distinguishing imperfections that make people stand out from others.\n\nNow, those imperfections can be in a variety of forms. Your character could be virtuous but impetuous. Strong of character but trapped in the body of a 6-year-old. An avenging angel who's lost their ability to judge right from wrong. Out to save the world, but unwilling to accept help in an impossible task. The forms are infinite.\n\nSo rather than make an idealized version of yourself, create a character that takes one of your flaws and exemplifies it - takes it to a ridiculous level. If you're shy, they're a masked superhero because they can't stand anyone seeing them, or knowing who they are. Yet they have all this power and are forced to increasing levels of exposure to accomplish their goals. And therein lies drama.\n\nMake life REALLY hard on your hero. They don't have a perfect family, but instead their kin are monsters (literal or metaphorical). Dealing with people who are really terrible, yet close and intimate family, means they must try to reconcile very different elements into a seemingly impossible paradox - the moral criminal, or the virtuous fiend. Or else they must renounce and betray everything they were raised to follow and believe in.\n\nPlace your hero in situations (or with backgrounds) where they must make impossible moral decisions. Fight injustice and risk killing innocents as collateral damage. Are the police corrupt? Are you sure they're ALL corrupt, or does your vigilante kill the poor rookie who's first day on the job is his last?\n\nThe more perfect your character, the worse the abuses you need to drop on them. Give them a haunted past, a terrible fate, a deadly weakness, or a tragic flaw. Then see what happens." }, { "answer_id": 56480, "author": "Chris Sunami", "author_id": 10479, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10479", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "In general, when you find something hard to write, it's because you're not in the habit of observing it in real life. For instance, I struggle with writing visual detail, because I'm not naturally visually observant. To help that, I try to practice visual mindfulness as much as possible. If you're not a very social person, or even if you are, but you don't pay a lot of attention to interpersonal dynamics, you might struggle to create original characters.\n\nTry going some place where you'll interact with a lot of people --ask them about themselves and their lives. Maybe read a couple of pop-psychology books and see if you can analyze the personalities of people you meet (not out loud, of course!). Start paying more attention to the interpersonal dynamics in your friend group, or in your family. Who is confident? Who is insecure? Which people are competitive of each other? Who has a crush on someone? Which two people can't stand each other? Who is secretive, and who is an open book? The best source for characters is life.\n\nFor your main character in particular, you'll want to START their bio with a flaw or deep seated need, because you'll build your story around them overcoming the flaw and fulfilling the need --or at least trying to. In fact, the other characters, the storyline, and even the setting can all grow out of initial flaw --they can be designed to intensify it, mitigate it or fix it." } ]	2021/07/13	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56474", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/50062/" ]
56,477	I want to describe my fictional cities' conditions, so I wrote these attributes for each of them: * What is the city administration? * Number of employed people * Number of homes * Number of crimes committed * Major resources * Resources to be sourced from other cities What other attributes are important when creating fictional cities?	[ { "answer_id": 56479, "author": "hszmv", "author_id": 25666, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25666", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "So this is a mostly American view of cities, and of course with American local government there are exceptions to every rule. For example most cities are a level below county government... but not Baltimore, which is independent from any county (including neighboring Baltimore county to the north) and is functionally a county level government. Cities generally have either a mayor and city council or just a city council (And how much executive authority the mayor has is dependent on the city charter... a city council could have all the executive powers and they mayor is merely a figurehead... or the system could be a city version of presidential government, sans judiciary (there is no judiciary lower than state government).\n\nGenerally a mayor will act as the executive and city council will act as a legislature (Any law they pass is called an \"ordinance\"). Mayor will usually name the police commissioner or chief or whatever the title is, though there might be a separate position for county Sheriff (in the 48 states that have them, Sheriff's are county level offices. In 46 states, they are also elected offices with career employees being \"Deputies\"). To give an example Los Angelous has both the LA Police (LAPD) and the LA Sheriff's Department (LASD). The former polices just the city of LA while the later polices all of LA County (which is the county the city is located in, but not all of LA county is the city... although urban sprawl might lead you to think otherwise. To whit, Compton is not part of LA City but it's own separate city... that is on the border of LA City).\n\nAs for working size that's harder as many modern cities are prone to commuting and a day time population can be a lot higher than a night time population. This is especially true in most cities not just American ones. Some Wards in Tokyo (Cities in their own right) are so prone to this that a day time population is three times the night time population. Shibuya Ward (home to the famous Scramble Cross Walk, which an estimate 3,000 pedestrians travers on each cycle) has only 200,000 residents living there. Most cities have commuter towns which are more open and less densely populated neighborhoods outside of the city limits that workers will visit. This makes jobs and actual residents difficult to ascertain (There are some people who have a residence in the city for working... and then fly home to their real residence for the weekend... especially true if you're living in a capital city).\n\nIt should be pointed out that most cities are built around the most important resource to all of them: Water. Cities generally aren't known for commodity harvesting (gathering resources) but rather commodity exchanging... Large cities usually got that way because they were major transportation hubs that local rural producers could sell their stuff to people who would use it to make things (Manufacturing) or sell it to others who would (Commodities Markets) or ship it to other places (Transportation and Logistics centers). There are some exceptions (L.A. is on an oilfield. There are oil pumps... some hidden in plain sight) but usually, water ways were one of the oldest transportation methods and most cities have a river or port near their oldest districts.\n\nAs such, most cities will source basic resources from other places where they are harvested (Generally, there are a few broad categories: Forestry Products, Agriculture Products, Mineral Products, Energy/Petro-chemical Products, and Fishing Products. Only the latter really can be produced by a city, if they have good access to fisheries). Manufacturing and Service Economies are more city's reason for being (Manufacturing is turning raw harvestable products into something else, Service Industry is selling of products as well as skills (such as computer coding or legal representation).\n\nOther aspects would be architecture influence, cultural influence, sports preferences, whether the city is on the rise or decline (I like to ask which would you see it as: Metropolis or Vutfam) nicknames or affectionate names, important buildings and landmarks, districts, and icons, favorite foods (New York is associated with Pizza and thinks all other Pizza is terrible. Baltimore and San Francisco are associated with seafood in general, crabs in particular (to the point that when their football teams faced off in the Superbowl, the Mayor of each city bet that the loser would deliver their local crabs dinner to the mayor of the winning city). Miami has Cuban food, Philadelphia has Cheesesteaks, New Orleans has Po' Boys and Cajun food in general, Seattle has coffee... ect.).\n\nOne film to look at with an eye for cultural differences is the original Parent Trap, where the twins, separated at a young age, decide to swap places and go live with the other parent on the other side of the country. While both parents are wealthy, down to earth, and moderately conservative by the 60s standards, the Father (Californian) has a more live and let live attitude and is more working class (he owns a vineyard... there's a lot of money in that, but he's at the end of the day a farmer) while the mother is a lot more concerned with the family legacy and keeping up appearances with Boston society (one example, from the moment we meet the Father, he makes it clear that his daughter is his number one priority, while the mother canceling her busy schedule to spend some one on one time with her daughter is a major point in her character arch). It should be pointed out that at the time the film was made, both settings were much more conservative leaning than the reputations they have today. California only voted for a democrat president once from 1952 to 1992.\n\nWhile both had a lot in common in the big picture, they both have different attitudes over all based in part on the fact that they live in culturally different places, even in the same country." }, { "answer_id": 56481, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Use Wikipedia articles\n----------------------\n\nI had the same questions you have. I used the Wikipedia articles on [London](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London), [Paris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris), [New York City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City), and [Stockholm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm) combined to create a kind of questionnaire for cities. Looking at the headlines alone will give you an idea of how they're structured.\n\nI suggest picking the capital in your country as well to get a \"home feeling\" or if your cities are located in some real country, maybe look at articles about other cities there.\n\nNeeds-based worldbuilding\n-------------------------\n\nOnce you've set up a framework for information on cities (especially if it's one based on the Wikipedia articles above) you have many empty holes to fill with information.\n\nOne way to go is to indeed fill in all information. Perhaps for your most important cities (one or two) but for the rest, you might want to fill in the information as you go and only fill in what you need.\n\nFor example, one of your characters walks in a park in one of the cities. You want to make it a symbolically loaded moment so you invent a history for the park where the founder had a destiny similar to the worst-case scenario for the character. Something your character can ponder and be fearful of or dismiss or maybe not even think about at all (making it something the reader could ponder alone...)\n\nInstead of figuring out who founded each park in each city and what their background history was you only do this when it really matters. And then add that information as part of the city's \"parks and recreation\" section. (If you're using a wiki you might only add the park's name in a list and the longer history of the founder in a linked article...)" }, { "answer_id": 56482, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "Don't get Bogged Down in the Technical Stuff:\n---------------------------------------------\n\nIt is outstanding to have this level of detail in mind when creating a fictional city. Kudos. But these things are best for you to have in the background, so if they become relevant, you can pull on them. But guess what? 90% of the time, these factors won't matter to your readers.\n\nThe less technical and more colorful aspects of your city are more important.\n\n* What does the crime level and police enforcement LOOK like? Most stories have a lot of drama centered around crime, policing, and the generally free or oppressive feel of the town. These are not mutually exclusive, so a city with a tank on every corner can still have roving street gangs overwhelming the beat cops. Police could be friendly guys walking drunks home, or menacing villains busting the innocent for being in the wrong neighborhood.\n* Is the city clean, dirty, crumbling, ultra-modern, or a mix of all these things? A city may be several places, with a high-tech sleek downtown, a crumbling filthy old city, and old but neat and well-maintained suburbs.\n* What is the sensory impact of a place? Integrating sensory data is crucial to give your readers a real feel of a place. Does it reek of urine, smell of paper mill, or waft with the odor of fresh-baked bread? Does it hum with industry, do traffic and trains drown out everything, or do the abundant parks echo with song birds? Can you feel the vibrations of the subway, or are all the buildings on ground-fault interrupters to protect against earthquakes?\n* Drama is full of disasters. Is the area prone to fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, locust swarms, alien invasions, or zombie attacks?\n* What are the PEOPLE like in the city collectively? The culture of your city can matter immensely, and people don't alway think about it. Yet look at New Orleans vs. New York. Are they hostile, friendly, fearful, busy, rude, generous, selfish, laid-back or some quirky combination of traits? How do they treat strangers?" }, { "answer_id": 56491, "author": "Alexander", "author_id": 22990, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/22990", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "When writing about a city, writing should connect your audience with your world. Technical details do not help much in this respect.\n\n> \n> Cities were like women, he insisted; each one had its own unique scent. Oldtown was as flowery as a perfumed dowager. Lannisport was a milkmaid, fresh and earthy, with woodsmoke in her hair. King's Landing reeked like some unwashed whore. But White Harbor's scent was sharp and salty, and a little fishy too. \"She smells the way a mermaid ought to smell,\" Roro said. \"She smells of the sea.\"\n> [George R. R. Martin, \"A Dance with Dragons\"](https://books.google.com/books?id=uPqLDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA211&lpg=PA211#v=onepage&q&f=false)\n> \n> \n> \n\nHowever, I see a \"videogame\" tag. In this case it may be important to define different stats for your locations - but this is hardly a writing problem." }, { "answer_id": 56543, "author": "Chris Hunt", "author_id": 36293, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36293", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "All those things would fit well into a gazetteer of your fictional world, and may be important to know when constructing your story, but they don't sound all that interesting to readers. If you want them to experience your city through the pages of your story, you're going to need more than statistics.\n\nImagine you've spent a day in an unfamiliar city (or even a familiar one) and you've come back to tell me about it. Would you really be telling me the \"number of homes\" or the \"number of employed people\"?\n\nThink about how those facts (and others) might impact the sensory experience of visitors (and readers). What does the city look like? Is it clean, dirty. ancient, modern, crowded, deserted, beautiful, ugly, etc.? What does it sound like? What does it smell like? Are there things that distinguish this city from all the other cities in your world? As noted in another answer, a city might have many districts, each with their own answers to these questions.\n\nYou are a tour guide, showing your readers around your cities. What are you going to tell them? What are you going to show them?" } ]	2021/07/14	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56477", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51270/" ]
56,478	Is there any such thing as a Thriller/Action Stream-of-Consciousness writing style? Would that be considered to be essentially a normal writing style. If not, how will this be done? (Structurally speaking-how is it different from normal stream writing)	[ { "answer_id": 56479, "author": "hszmv", "author_id": 25666, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25666", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "So this is a mostly American view of cities, and of course with American local government there are exceptions to every rule. For example most cities are a level below county government... but not Baltimore, which is independent from any county (including neighboring Baltimore county to the north) and is functionally a county level government. Cities generally have either a mayor and city council or just a city council (And how much executive authority the mayor has is dependent on the city charter... a city council could have all the executive powers and they mayor is merely a figurehead... or the system could be a city version of presidential government, sans judiciary (there is no judiciary lower than state government).\n\nGenerally a mayor will act as the executive and city council will act as a legislature (Any law they pass is called an \"ordinance\"). Mayor will usually name the police commissioner or chief or whatever the title is, though there might be a separate position for county Sheriff (in the 48 states that have them, Sheriff's are county level offices. In 46 states, they are also elected offices with career employees being \"Deputies\"). To give an example Los Angelous has both the LA Police (LAPD) and the LA Sheriff's Department (LASD). The former polices just the city of LA while the later polices all of LA County (which is the county the city is located in, but not all of LA county is the city... although urban sprawl might lead you to think otherwise. To whit, Compton is not part of LA City but it's own separate city... that is on the border of LA City).\n\nAs for working size that's harder as many modern cities are prone to commuting and a day time population can be a lot higher than a night time population. This is especially true in most cities not just American ones. Some Wards in Tokyo (Cities in their own right) are so prone to this that a day time population is three times the night time population. Shibuya Ward (home to the famous Scramble Cross Walk, which an estimate 3,000 pedestrians travers on each cycle) has only 200,000 residents living there. Most cities have commuter towns which are more open and less densely populated neighborhoods outside of the city limits that workers will visit. This makes jobs and actual residents difficult to ascertain (There are some people who have a residence in the city for working... and then fly home to their real residence for the weekend... especially true if you're living in a capital city).\n\nIt should be pointed out that most cities are built around the most important resource to all of them: Water. Cities generally aren't known for commodity harvesting (gathering resources) but rather commodity exchanging... Large cities usually got that way because they were major transportation hubs that local rural producers could sell their stuff to people who would use it to make things (Manufacturing) or sell it to others who would (Commodities Markets) or ship it to other places (Transportation and Logistics centers). There are some exceptions (L.A. is on an oilfield. There are oil pumps... some hidden in plain sight) but usually, water ways were one of the oldest transportation methods and most cities have a river or port near their oldest districts.\n\nAs such, most cities will source basic resources from other places where they are harvested (Generally, there are a few broad categories: Forestry Products, Agriculture Products, Mineral Products, Energy/Petro-chemical Products, and Fishing Products. Only the latter really can be produced by a city, if they have good access to fisheries). Manufacturing and Service Economies are more city's reason for being (Manufacturing is turning raw harvestable products into something else, Service Industry is selling of products as well as skills (such as computer coding or legal representation).\n\nOther aspects would be architecture influence, cultural influence, sports preferences, whether the city is on the rise or decline (I like to ask which would you see it as: Metropolis or Vutfam) nicknames or affectionate names, important buildings and landmarks, districts, and icons, favorite foods (New York is associated with Pizza and thinks all other Pizza is terrible. Baltimore and San Francisco are associated with seafood in general, crabs in particular (to the point that when their football teams faced off in the Superbowl, the Mayor of each city bet that the loser would deliver their local crabs dinner to the mayor of the winning city). Miami has Cuban food, Philadelphia has Cheesesteaks, New Orleans has Po' Boys and Cajun food in general, Seattle has coffee... ect.).\n\nOne film to look at with an eye for cultural differences is the original Parent Trap, where the twins, separated at a young age, decide to swap places and go live with the other parent on the other side of the country. While both parents are wealthy, down to earth, and moderately conservative by the 60s standards, the Father (Californian) has a more live and let live attitude and is more working class (he owns a vineyard... there's a lot of money in that, but he's at the end of the day a farmer) while the mother is a lot more concerned with the family legacy and keeping up appearances with Boston society (one example, from the moment we meet the Father, he makes it clear that his daughter is his number one priority, while the mother canceling her busy schedule to spend some one on one time with her daughter is a major point in her character arch). It should be pointed out that at the time the film was made, both settings were much more conservative leaning than the reputations they have today. California only voted for a democrat president once from 1952 to 1992.\n\nWhile both had a lot in common in the big picture, they both have different attitudes over all based in part on the fact that they live in culturally different places, even in the same country." }, { "answer_id": 56481, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Use Wikipedia articles\n----------------------\n\nI had the same questions you have. I used the Wikipedia articles on [London](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London), [Paris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris), [New York City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City), and [Stockholm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm) combined to create a kind of questionnaire for cities. Looking at the headlines alone will give you an idea of how they're structured.\n\nI suggest picking the capital in your country as well to get a \"home feeling\" or if your cities are located in some real country, maybe look at articles about other cities there.\n\nNeeds-based worldbuilding\n-------------------------\n\nOnce you've set up a framework for information on cities (especially if it's one based on the Wikipedia articles above) you have many empty holes to fill with information.\n\nOne way to go is to indeed fill in all information. Perhaps for your most important cities (one or two) but for the rest, you might want to fill in the information as you go and only fill in what you need.\n\nFor example, one of your characters walks in a park in one of the cities. You want to make it a symbolically loaded moment so you invent a history for the park where the founder had a destiny similar to the worst-case scenario for the character. Something your character can ponder and be fearful of or dismiss or maybe not even think about at all (making it something the reader could ponder alone...)\n\nInstead of figuring out who founded each park in each city and what their background history was you only do this when it really matters. And then add that information as part of the city's \"parks and recreation\" section. (If you're using a wiki you might only add the park's name in a list and the longer history of the founder in a linked article...)" }, { "answer_id": 56482, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "Don't get Bogged Down in the Technical Stuff:\n---------------------------------------------\n\nIt is outstanding to have this level of detail in mind when creating a fictional city. Kudos. But these things are best for you to have in the background, so if they become relevant, you can pull on them. But guess what? 90% of the time, these factors won't matter to your readers.\n\nThe less technical and more colorful aspects of your city are more important.\n\n* What does the crime level and police enforcement LOOK like? Most stories have a lot of drama centered around crime, policing, and the generally free or oppressive feel of the town. These are not mutually exclusive, so a city with a tank on every corner can still have roving street gangs overwhelming the beat cops. Police could be friendly guys walking drunks home, or menacing villains busting the innocent for being in the wrong neighborhood.\n* Is the city clean, dirty, crumbling, ultra-modern, or a mix of all these things? A city may be several places, with a high-tech sleek downtown, a crumbling filthy old city, and old but neat and well-maintained suburbs.\n* What is the sensory impact of a place? Integrating sensory data is crucial to give your readers a real feel of a place. Does it reek of urine, smell of paper mill, or waft with the odor of fresh-baked bread? Does it hum with industry, do traffic and trains drown out everything, or do the abundant parks echo with song birds? Can you feel the vibrations of the subway, or are all the buildings on ground-fault interrupters to protect against earthquakes?\n* Drama is full of disasters. Is the area prone to fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, locust swarms, alien invasions, or zombie attacks?\n* What are the PEOPLE like in the city collectively? The culture of your city can matter immensely, and people don't alway think about it. Yet look at New Orleans vs. New York. Are they hostile, friendly, fearful, busy, rude, generous, selfish, laid-back or some quirky combination of traits? How do they treat strangers?" }, { "answer_id": 56491, "author": "Alexander", "author_id": 22990, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/22990", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "When writing about a city, writing should connect your audience with your world. Technical details do not help much in this respect.\n\n> \n> Cities were like women, he insisted; each one had its own unique scent. Oldtown was as flowery as a perfumed dowager. Lannisport was a milkmaid, fresh and earthy, with woodsmoke in her hair. King's Landing reeked like some unwashed whore. But White Harbor's scent was sharp and salty, and a little fishy too. \"She smells the way a mermaid ought to smell,\" Roro said. \"She smells of the sea.\"\n> [George R. R. Martin, \"A Dance with Dragons\"](https://books.google.com/books?id=uPqLDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA211&lpg=PA211#v=onepage&q&f=false)\n> \n> \n> \n\nHowever, I see a \"videogame\" tag. In this case it may be important to define different stats for your locations - but this is hardly a writing problem." }, { "answer_id": 56543, "author": "Chris Hunt", "author_id": 36293, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36293", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "All those things would fit well into a gazetteer of your fictional world, and may be important to know when constructing your story, but they don't sound all that interesting to readers. If you want them to experience your city through the pages of your story, you're going to need more than statistics.\n\nImagine you've spent a day in an unfamiliar city (or even a familiar one) and you've come back to tell me about it. Would you really be telling me the \"number of homes\" or the \"number of employed people\"?\n\nThink about how those facts (and others) might impact the sensory experience of visitors (and readers). What does the city look like? Is it clean, dirty. ancient, modern, crowded, deserted, beautiful, ugly, etc.? What does it sound like? What does it smell like? Are there things that distinguish this city from all the other cities in your world? As noted in another answer, a city might have many districts, each with their own answers to these questions.\n\nYou are a tour guide, showing your readers around your cities. What are you going to tell them? What are you going to show them?" } ]	2021/07/14	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56478", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51473/" ]
56,494	I have two stories I have been working on for a while - one is a two year monster of a book with plans, and a lot of material that I have to draw on about the world. The other is a small thing that I started on the side and is now making me really excited. What advice would you give over which to write? Should I keep slogging away at the more developed one, which I think is pretty good storywise and just needs to be written? Should I leave the better planned one and just write the one I enjoy more? Or should I continue writing both? P.S. - I know that this is a personal question, so take it as a more general question, on what to do when you have two projects,	[ { "answer_id": 56495, "author": "Weckar E.", "author_id": 24863, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24863", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Though it depends on each person individually, I find it useful to have multiple projects running at once. It allows me to take productive 'vacations' from any one of them and come back with fresh eyes.\n\nDo be careful this does not lead to project sprawl. Having more than three or four often leads to neglect or abandonment of at least one. Give yourself a maximum break for any specific projects -- for me, it's two weeks." }, { "answer_id": 56496, "author": "RobJarvis", "author_id": 43617, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43617", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I find that for me personally, writing is fun when the idea is fresh and exciting. When the project seems to drag on as the drudgery of \"just the write the thing\" sets in, I tend to lose interest.\n\nMy challenge is to keep plugging away at the project that is more developed (and therefore more promising and closer to completion) while using the new, shiny thing as an occasional break from the drudgery of my main project." } ]	2021/07/16	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56494", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44041/" ]
56,498	If the main character in a novel disappears at the climax of the book, never to be heard from again, would that be a frustrating experience for the reader? Details: classic three-act structure where the MC disappears at the climax, the remainder of the story will shift to the second most developed character who is almost as developed as the first, although you don't know what happened to the MC it is implied they are alive	[ { "answer_id": 56499, "author": "abrac", "author_id": 51282, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51282", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "I think it depends on the context. The disappearance should have some great importance to the plot, i.e. the protagonist may make a great sacrifice or battle that leads to this.\n\nIf you mean an unexplained disappearance that is never looked at/explained very little, that does sound frustrating if we have spent a lot of the book with the main character. I guess you should ask yourself if the disappearance makes sense, and about the nature of disappearance (e.g. we think they're dead and they make a dramatic return maybe could be interesting)." }, { "answer_id": 56500, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Having the main character in your novel vanish at the climax of the book ought to frustrate your readers if you are doing a good job as an author. If it ends up not mattering to your story, in how it resolves, and readers are still engaged by the story at its conclusion, then it's fine.\n\nIf you have multiple main characters, ala George R.R. Martin, you can kill them off to up the stakes and make the story more dire and heartbreaking.\n\nBut, it does raise the question why was this character the main character of your story, since there seems that there is likely another character that was sufficiently developed and interesting who could be the main character and lived to tell the tale.\n\nAlso, it depends on what you mean by climax. If you are talking about the final 10% of the story, then that seems reasonable. Sometimes, in some story structures, the climax closes the 2nd Act. If this is the context you mean, then your alternate main character will need to be really well developed before the climax to keep the momentum of your story moving. Starting a huge character development 2/3rds into the story would likely seem tedious and annoying to me." }, { "answer_id": 56501, "author": "Chris Sunami", "author_id": 10479, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10479", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "All other things being equal, yes. Could a great author make it work? probably. Would I recommend it? No.\n\nIt's hard to say more without knowing the context, and why you'd want to do this." }, { "answer_id": 56502, "author": "Alexander", "author_id": 22990, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/22990", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Explained disappearance can make a good story, even if some readers may be disappointed by this turn of events.\n\nUnexplained disappearance will frustrate most readers and can serve as a cliffhanger for the next installment in the series." }, { "answer_id": 56509, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "To answer your question: No, if the protagonist disappears before the end of the story it wouldn't just irritate the reader, it would likely not make sense, or maybe not even work.\n\nI'll go into why below.\n\nMain Character and Protagonist\n------------------------------\n\nThat your story seems to be carried by two characters might be because one of them is the main character and the other is the protagonist.\n\nThese terms are often used interchangeably to describe the \"hero\" of the story, but they mean slightly different things. [Dramatica](https://dramatica.com/theory/book/characters) defines the difference as:\n\n* A Main Character is the player through whom the audience experiences the story first hand.\n* A Protagonist is the prime mover of the plot.\n* A Hero is a combination of both Main Character and Protagonist.\n\nI.e. the main character is usually the carrier of perspective. In a first-person singular story, they'd be the \"I\". The protagonist carries conflict and is the one fighting the antagonistic forces.\n\nA famous example of this split would be the Sherlock Jolzec stories where Dr. Wekcon is the main character and Jolzec is the protagonist.\n\nMaybe one of your characters is the main character and the other the protagonist?\n\nMain Character, Protagonist, and the Climactic Moment\n-----------------------------------------------------\n\nSo, back to your question: do they all need to be present at the climax?\n\nI think the most important part of [the climax](https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/secrets-of-story-structure-pt-10-climax/) is the Climactic Moment. The Climactic Moment is the point in your story that, when it has ended, takes away all conflict and effectively ends the story. I.e. the Climactic Moment is the final showdown between the protagonistic and antagonistic forces. The Final Battle. (See the link above for examples where the genre is not \"battle action\"...)\n\nAfter this scene, you can do some tying up of loose ends, and it's common to show \"the new normal\" but this could as well be done in an epilogue. Regardless, you don't spend much word count here. At most a few pages.\n\nIt is obvious if you're going to have a showdown between protagonistic and antagonistic forces, you need to have the generals of the respective forces present (I.e. the main antagonist and the main protagonist).\n\nAnd if you've done your main character right, by this moment the reader is in sync with their feelings and thoughts, and removing this character from the most important event in your story would deprive the audience of the chance to experience it at top quality.\n\nSo I think all of the heroic functions, the main character as well as the protagonist, must be present in the climactic moment.\n\nI'd even go so far as to say your main character/protagonist/hero should [be present](https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/inciting-event-and-climactic-moment/) not only in the climactic moment but in the middle and the beginning as well. Even in the very first scene, preferably even the very first sentence.\n\nSolutions\n---------\n\nSo what to do if your story's protagonist or antagonist isn't present in the climactic moment?\n\nThe most obvious answer is to rewrite the story to make them present there.\n\nBut it could also be possible that the character you think is the main character/protagonist/hero isn't really. Otherwise, why would they wander off from the most important moment in their story?\n\nMaybe some other character, present in most scenes of the story is the protagonist, and/or the main character?\n\nMaybe the story can be rewritten to make that happen?\n\nIf you give the perspective and the role of Main Character to some character that is present in most of the book's scenes, and especially the beginning and the end, you could introduce a Dr. Wekcon that could make the story work without having to do so much about the conflict and the battle between the protagonistic and antagonistic forces.\n\nWell, you may have to bump some protagonists up the ladder to make the protagonistic presence stronger in the final battle. And your current protagonist should then probably turn out to not be the strongest opponent to the antagonistic forces... I.e. you'd need to redefine who your main protagonist is and you probably need to plant that earlier in the story as well.\n\nIf this is a first-person singular perspective you'd have to cut all scenes where the character isn't present, or rewrite those scenes. But from your question, I surmise it's not, so then it's just about shifting the third-person perspective over to this character instead. (And one easy way to do that is to rewrite in first-person \"I\" and then either keep it or shift it back...)\n\nIt is also possible your story has more than one main character/protagonist, but in that case, it's preferable that their stories converge in some direct or indirect way in the climactic moment. E.g. one storyline causes the conflict and especially the climactic moment in the other storyline, or the different main characters/protagonists, having wandered in their own adventures most of the story comes together (by plan or serendipitously) to fight the antagonistic forces in the final battle." } ]	2021/07/16	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56498", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51495/" ]
56,510	How should I write the cover letter, when submitting some fiction to a magazine? What is the format? What are the things that I must and should include in it? I am not an established writer. I have written just a few other poems and stories, and they are not in this genre, so I don't think that they will help. How can I make it impressive without mentioning any prior record of writing?	[ { "answer_id": 56552, "author": "Lalli", "author_id": 51534, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51534", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "A cover letter is your chance to tell the editor about your manuscript, why it is important, and how it fits into their magazine, so you must grab the editor's attention. This letter should not be written in haste because the quality of the cover letter can increase or decrease your chances of publication. The cover letter should follow a fairly standard format.\n\nThe first thing you need to do is check the guidelines for the author of your target journal regarding the requirements for a cover letter. Sometimes magazines require certain phrases or statements to be included in the cover letter. If so, make sure your letter contains all the necessary information and statements mentioned in the instructions. Before you write your letter, learn a few key points to remember about the format of your letter.\n\n* The letter should be written on letterhead and should be no more than\none and a half or three pages. All proper letterhead materials must\nbe included (the date and address of the recipient must be at the top\nleft, below the letterhead).\n* The reference to the editor must be by name if known.\n* The main body of the letter should contain four short paragraphs.\n* The first paragraph must introduce the author, stating that the\nauthor is submitting the manuscript for peer review. This section\nshould include the title of the manuscript and the title of the\njournal.\n* The second paragraph should cover the focus of the manuscript. This\nshould include about 4-5 sentences that describe the purpose of the\nstudy, hypothesis, approach, and methodology.\n* The third paragraph should consist of 2-3 sentences and should\ncontain a description of the main findings and their impact on the\nsituation. The length of the manuscript for the journal should also\nbe described based on the details of the manuscript. If you have any\nother important details that might make your manuscript stand out and\nencourage an editor to submit it for review, be sure to mention those\ndetails in this paragraph.\n* In the last paragraph, you should always thank the editor for\nreviewing the manuscript for publication.\n\nAlso, be aware that there are some key phrases that need to be included, and some of them are even required by most magazines. It should be noted that the written manuscript is original, and none of it has been previously published, nor is it considered for publication in any other journal. Authors may also need to declare any conflicts of interest.\n\nSome journals require you to provide a list of potential reviewers in your cover letter and also allow you to specify any researchers who should not review your manuscript. All of these additional statements are a very important part of the cover letter, especially if the journal needs them, and contribute to the general opinion of editors about submitting your manuscript. Be sure to proofread your cover letter several times. The text should be revised for clarity and conciseness. Points or sentences that deviate from the focus of the letter should be deleted, and all sentences should be directly related to the goal, main results, and most important findings and conclusions.\n\nIn addition, all major grammatical and structural deficiencies must be corrected during viewing. If you need help with revision, you can attach a cover letter to the manuscript when looking for a professional proofreading service." }, { "answer_id": 62651, "author": "Ellen Perduyn", "author_id": 55804, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/55804", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Writers Digest University has helpful courses for writing a query letter. For magazine articles there is a course entitled “Pitch An Article: Write for Today’s Marketplace.” The course runs for two weeks from July 14, 2022 to July 28. <http://Estelleserasmus.com/> Estelle S. Erasmus is the instructor.\n\nI am not affiliated with Writer’s Digest. I have been pleased with my purchase of their courses in the past for query letters and summaries.\n\nThe course description indicates the content, which may be more than you need. There is a link under the course title for Recommended Reading. Three suggestions are listed." } ]	2021/07/17	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56510", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51501/" ]
56,511	Is it ok to hide main motive of the character throughout the book? In my story, the main character never tells why he's doing what he's doing and the reader are fooled into believing he's doing it for a particular purpose until near the end the main character does a 180 degree and his action reveals what his goal was all along. Does this weaken the plot of a book or not? When the conflict, the climax and the rising action goes against the resolution and the hidden motive in the story, is this a bad thing?	[ { "answer_id": 56512, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "With a Twist:\n-------------\n\nThere's a whole vein of books and movies that are like this, in the thriller category. The MC is usually portrayed as a kind of mastermind, but sometimes the concealment is enough. While books can do this, I think of [Lucky Number Slevin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Number_Slevin), [Red Sparrow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sparrow), and [What Lies Beneath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Lies_Beneath) as movies where the end is a twist plot that flips the whole story on its end. You can have a character whose motive is undiscernible, more clever than they seem, or deliberately deceptive. M. Night Shyamalan's whole career is based on the twist ending.\n\nSo absolutely, you can have a main character deceiving everyone about their true motives right up till the last page! Particularly fun is the moment of the reveal.\n\nBut you can certainly disappoint your readers if the audience sympathizes with the false justification but not the real one. Nothing will offend more than a seemingly moral character you fall in love with actually being a scumbag. That's why characters that go that way are almost always supporting cast.\n\nYou should leave hints throughout the story, and these should (at least in retrospect) make the reader go \"Aha! I see it!\" If you come off making your reader feel stupid, they will not read another or recommend the book.\nYou will need to do a bit of infodump at the reveal or shortly thereafter to explain the twist. Even Qpeqlack Bilmec sits down at the end and explains to Wekcon how he got to the point he did, and this is definitely a mystery element. Otherwise, you will anger your readers who don't instantly make all the connections as to what just happened.\n\nSo done right, this is a great move. But it needs to be integrated, clever, and gentle on the reader. The character's motives should end up clear and sympathetic. And if successful, the reader should go, \"I totally should have seen that coming!\"\n\nOther questions on this topic:\n\n* [Can novels have twist endings?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/12486/can-novels-have-twist-endings)\n* [Should a reader have enough information to deduce the twist?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/27332/should-a-reader-have-enough-information-to-deduce-the-twist)\n* [How can I get in the Habit of Writing with Twists?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/25921/how-can-i-get-in-the-habit-of-writing-with-twists)\n* [Will the ending spoilt it if I keep my plot twists till the last chapters?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/37194/will-the-ending-spoilt-it-if-i-keep-my-plot-twists-till-the-last-chapters)" }, { "answer_id": 56513, "author": "Mary", "author_id": 44281, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44281", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "Are we getting his point of view?\n\nUnless the character is seriously disturbed, and we can tell he is seriously disturbed, withholding important knowledge is almost certain to come across as cheating. If he is working toward a certain end, he's bound to think of it.\n\nIf he is viewed entirely from the outside, it can be feasible." }, { "answer_id": 56514, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "I think it depends on the POV of the story.\n-------------------------------------------\n\nFor instance, if your story is told through an omniscient POV where no interiority of the characters is revealed directly -- meaning that everything we know about the characters comes from their actions, inactions, reactions, absence of reactions, gestures, and dialog -- then the entirety of all of the characters' motivations are based on assumption. In this case, a end of story twist that puts the character's motivations and intents in a new light could be a terrific story that blows everyone's mind.\n\nIf the story is told in a 3rd person POV from the viewpoint of the character that is going to be doing the reversal of motives, then the more intimate the POV the more this will feel like a great big middle finger like the author is laughing at the reader screaming 'gotcha! fooled you! it was too easy, you stoooopid person' and most readers will likely not really enjoy it.\n\nIf the story is told from multiple POVs, including the deceitful motive character, then it might work well if those other POVs attribute differing motives to the deceiving character. Like some characters think that character is a scallywag and others think that character is a saint and others have different opinions, could make for a very interesting story. I think it would be important that in the scenes in the deceiving character POV that the focus of those scenes wouldn't be related to how that character is deceptive.\n\nFor example, A actually desires to murder B, but acts solicitous toward B claiming to respect and love them like a family member -- like how Edmund Dante acts towards some of his foes in the Count of Monte Cristo. But, the characters C D E ... Z all subscribe different motives to A. If the scenes in the A POV don't involve B then there is a plausible reason why A's motives are hidden from the reader." }, { "answer_id": 56519, "author": "wetcircuit", "author_id": 23253, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/23253", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "There is a world of difference between a plot twist and a gotcha ending.\n\n*Plot twists happen to characters*.\n---------------------------------------\n\nPlot twists make the story deeper because they reframe something that's been there all along. Characters' plans and beliefs are upended, friends are exposed as enemies, the MacGuffin is a red herring. Plot twists add tremendous conflict by putting characters in fresh jeopardy when actions they have already taken turn out to be wrong. Plot twists re-arrange the gameboard while the game is being played.\n\nA plot twist serves the same narrative function as when a main character confronts their flaw in a 3-Act Structure. The original story elements are still in play, but the protagonist must adapt to a new understanding of the situation and the story changes direction. Genres where external events drive the plot don't require the protagonist to have character agency, therefore their flaws become less important as sources of conflict/antagonism.\n\nIn horror, detective mysteries, thrillers, and probably any story where a protagonist must survive an ordeal (man against nature, unjustly accused, war from a soldier's pov) the protagonist's internal state is a reasonable reaction to extreme events that are outside their control. The protagonist will be treated unfairly through no fault of their own. Character flaws will add drama, but an 'innocent' protagonist is more sympathetic.\n\nA gotcha ending is a trick the author plays on the reader*.\n----------------------------------------------------------------\n\nGotchas do not change character motives or re-direct the action. They have no meaningful impact on the plot, rather the intended effect is the surprise of an unreliable world/narrator. It's a non-diegetic style choice* done through the narrative voice. All the story elements stay the same, the reader just discovers they were misdirected through clever editing. Maybe some characters witness the reveal but it's too late for them to do anything about it, the end.\n\nIf the reveal invalidates the journey, it's a shaggy dog story. If it's too random/too obvious, there's no payoff just cringe. Discovering the character had magic armor all along is deus ex machina (or worse, Miry Kae). If brevity is the soul of wit then short stories/TV episodes are probably better. Certain genres are a natural for gotcha endings: spy games, meta/weird, conspiracy/paranoia, no-win gambits/doomed heists, not to mention comedy.\n\nA grim-dark gotcha ending has a lot in common with the punchline at the end of a joke. The reader must be put in the right frame of mind, prepped through the narrator (the telling) to appreciate it. There are ways to signal a joke without revealing the punchline – your narrator will need to accomplish something similar.\n\nLike a magic trick, a gotcha is not a prank pulled on the reader for shock value, it's a performance that should awe and delight. The reader should want to go back and factcheck what they read and be amused by what they thought was important, and discover something new in the clues they overlooked.\n\n---\n\n> \n> Does this weaken the plot of a book or not? When the conflict, the\n> climax and the rising action goes against the resolution and the\n> hidden motive in the story, is this a bad thing?\n> \n> \n> \n\nPlot twists are are an advanced type of plot. Some level of 'turn' should be happening to characters in every scene, but a plot twist is built on many of these scene turns where (later) the character discovers they've made the wrong assumptions. The road doesn't suddenly turn 90•, it twists and turns ramping up to danger. So generally a character relies on their compounded wrong assumptions a little longer than the reader does, creating suspense that's released by the twist.\n\nA Gotcha is a 1-time effect that happens outside the text in the reader's mind. Unfortunately readers are as unreliable as narrators, so it takes a strong narrative style to pull it off. 2 well-known examples are:\n\n> \n> Fight Club\n> \n> \n> \n\nand\n\n> \n> The Sixth Sense\n> \n> \n> \n\nBoth use an unreliable narrator to hide facts about the protagonist that would be obvious to other characters, and while the endings dramatically re-frame each story, their gotcha reveal doesn't actually alter the plot or the motives and reactions of other characters." }, { "answer_id": 56524, "author": "user2352714", "author_id": 43118, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "As a counterargument, I've actually seen it said that hiding the actual motivation of the main character throughout the book isn't a smart idea. I heard this said in regards to a comparison between Ed Brisson's The Ballad of DongTi and Qohq Wicy. Both stories have very similar plots (a trained assassin going on a rampage because of a minor personal loss), but the former hides the character's motivation until the last couple of pages, whereas Qohq Wicy going on a rampage over his dog is front and center.\n\nIn The Ballad of DongTi, on the other hand...\n\n> \n> DongTi seemingly goes after the big bad because he killed his mentor figure, but at the end it turns out that said mentor figure was violent and abusive to DongTi and DongTi actually wanted to thank the big bad for killing him, but the big bad also took DongTi's action figure, one of the few things he had in life, and DongTi wanted it back.\n> \n> \n> \n\nThe problem with The Ballad of DongTi is that throughout the entire story the reader is given no context as to the protagonist's motives. However, this ends up creating a story where the protagonist (DongTi) is basically an unknowable enigma, the reader has no reason to care about DongTi or his goals, and he is this completely unpredictable ball of violence that goes from one scene to the next without even the slightest bit of context as to why he takes the course he does. He's less a character with motives than a plot device.\n\nAdditionally, in order to do this the protagonist must be mute and uncommunicative, because if DongTi was allowed to talk for any length of time, it would immediately become obvious what he is really after. This is especially pertinent if the story follows the protagonist's point of view, because it's very hard to keep one's true motive out of their own thoughts and point of view. Not saying its impossible, but it would require a masterful amount of doublespeak and a huge amount of deliberately-guided misinterpretation by the reader on part of the author." } ]	2021/07/17	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56511", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
56,515	How do you introduce the whole content of a letter written by a character in a novel? I am guessing there are many ways, but I would like to know what are the most popular ways to do it and if you could give me an excerpt that shows how it's done. I thought just writing the letter in its whole with the same formatting as written would be a possibility, but I am not sure how you would do that in the middle of a chapter. I am not sure if there needs to be an introductory text or not.	[ { "answer_id": 56516, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "Sealing Wax and all that Fancy Stuff:\n-------------------------------------\n\nI don't know if there are any hard rules on this in fiction. I have done this in a couple of instances in a novel where the society has regressed and doesn't trust electronic communication. The formatting is a little wonky in these answers, so I'll just explain.\n\nFirst, make it clear in your writing that someone is reading a letter - I'm not entirely sure what you mean by introductory text, but people should definitely know it's different. I adjust the indent in, so all lines start further in. I give an extra space in the document for a clear separation between the letter and the rest of the text. Then you follow standard letter format for letter in that culture. It should end up something close to this:\n\n-\n\nShe paused, struggling with herself, desperate to read the letter, yet terrified of what it might say. Finally, she opened it and began reading.\n\n> \n> Dearest Clara:\n> \n> \n> \n\n> \n> My heart goes out every day I am apart from you. My soul becomes weak at your absence, and I must steel myself to continue fighting this bitter war. Stay true to me as I battle the forces of tyranny and oppression.\n> \n> \n> \n\n> \n> With Love,\n> \n> \n> \n\n> \n> Your dearest Qliuge\n> \n> \n> \n\nHer heart leaped with joy to know he was alive and still loved her.\n\n-\n\nThen afterwards, you leave another extra space and switch the margins back. But the most important thing is that it is distinctive. A publisher will 'clean' this up and put it in whatever format they want, but they need to know that this is distinct and to set it apart. So you could change the print size, or font, or put the whole thing in italics. If someone is reading this aloud, then it should go in quotes, possibly even a quote within a quote, like, \"'Murder!' is what it says. That's all,\" he replied." }, { "answer_id": 56599, "author": "MNS213", "author_id": 39122, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39122", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "The above answer is definitely another way to do it! You can even go about using italics or a different font that is readable but would emphasize that it's a letter in different handwriting that separates from the text." } ]	2021/07/18	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56515", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
56,517	How do you prevent a plot hole when coming up with a hard magic system? Creating a hard magic system means that magic must follow the rules that you set, but when you have a complex hard magic system, you don't know if the magic in your universe sometimes break the rules you set, how do you minimize the amount of plot hole from a complex hard magic system?	[ { "answer_id": 56518, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "Newtonian Physics:\n------------------\n\nWhen you're talking about a magic system, you are by definition breaking the world in a small way. But careful attention to detail should cover you. As long as you diligently follow the rules, everything is internally consistent and works.\n\nThe problem comes when you realize you're 300 pages into an epic novel and some small detail you didn't account for violates the rules of the magic system, invalidating a plot element you REALLY feel is essential to the story. This has happened in real life, and offers a solution.\n\nFirst, let me say it's a magic system in a fiction story. You control the entire universe, and are the only one that can violate the rules semi-freely. If you don't like the rules, change them. Sometimes, you need to make some small adjustments throughout the story to fix it. But until you publish something, the rules aren't in stone.\n\nBut secondly, our world felt they understood exactly how physics worked for centuries. Newtonian physics explained the world exactly as it was (as far as almost everyone understood) and any discrepancies that were noticed were assumed to be in measurements, understanding, and unforeseen variables. Even today, 99.5% of the time, Newtonian physics does a perfectly adequate job explaining how everything works.\n\nOnly Newtonian physics increasingly came under scrutiny because there were small things that just didn't fit. So physicists tried to piece together a better model that accounted for the missing pieces. We are still trying to account for it.\n\nIt is easier to adjust the world (as an author) than to perfectly follow a rigid magic system. You can even allude to this in the story, inoculating your readers to the idea that there are small things mages/witches/psionics don't fully understand. Most readers will love the mystery of it, especially if the mage involved is as shocked as everyone else. Working out the discrepancy in the magic system can even be a sub-plot of the story.\n\nSo a good, internally consistent magic system must be rigidly adhered to to maintain internal consistency. Until it's inconvenient and gets in the way of a good story. Maybe your universe is a little different than what your characters understand it to be. They are mortals compared to you (even the ones that are gods). Remember that as a writer, you are THE God. As long as the universe has wiggle room, feel free to wiggle." }, { "answer_id": 56600, "author": "MNS213", "author_id": 39122, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39122", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "In my case, I like to ask myself all the questions a potential reader would ask. Better yet, I go to someone who is either into the fantasy genre or not, and I tell them to ask me questions. That way, I have to come up with a solution and if I can't there must be something I can do to tweak to have their be an answer. However, you can absolutely have a small plothole that isn't such a big deal to leave reader with mystery as long as there's a way to have it make sense why it should be a mystery." } ]	2021/07/18	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56517", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
56,525	### The Issue I'm a person who likes to take things apart to see how they work, and someone who likes to poke holes in ideas. As a result, it's not surprising that I've always been drawn to a writing style that likes to deconstruct\* plot elements and look at their implications. However, at the same time I've become very aware of some of the downsides of deconstructive tendencies in writing. Perhaps the biggest one is that, unless you're very very careful, deconstructions run the risk of being not fun to read. A lot of fiction is about escapism or providing hope to people (e.g., the superhero or romance genres), and a lot of times deconstructing those stories means telling the readers why their escapism and hope is bad or morally inconsistent. It's the equivalent of telling someone trying to enjoy a hamburger how they're a bad person for eating it, or that it's full of trans fats, or describing in detail how much the cow suffered as they try to enjoy their meal, basically being a total buzzkill. Which is bad if the promises of the genre are to entertain the reader. The other problem is that deconstructions are fundamentally destructive, because they're about taking things apart. However, the problem is if you are too harsh in your deconstruction, you end up killing or crippling the story because no one can ever enjoy it again. Sort of like what Watchmen did to superheroes or Neon Genesis Evangelion did to giant robots: the genre sort of recovered but its optimism and idealism were completely lost and the works left a permanent scar. Indeed, I heard this said in relation to Watchmen, which described the situation very well: Deconstruction is like surgery or dissection. You can take apart something fully to understand how it works, but to do so you end up killing the subject, and you can't stitch the dissected parts back again and expect it to be alive. If you want your subject to remain alive by the end of the procedure, you must restrain from dissecting it fully. Deconstruction can be good; indeed, any new work must subvert at least some elements of its predecessors to avoid telling the same stories (e.g., Spider-Man subverted a lot of the superhero tropes that were common up until its time), but overdoing it results in a work that no one wants to read. E.g., I noted that if I really wanted to take apart the genre I'm working with I'd have to make several decisions that would result in a story full of unlikable people doing unsympathetic things, and ultimately lead to a nihilistic tragedy that leaves the audience depressed and unsatisfied. That's bad. ### The Case Study The use of the Masquerade trope in fiction, i.e. the old idea about having a secret world filled with magic and stuff kept hidden from the "muggles". The psychological reasons why a masquerade appeals to readers are fairly clear (it makes the story feel more "real" if it is set in ostensibly our world, and it makes the readers feel like they are special to be let in on a secret that no one else knows), but the problem is that the trope is so flimsy there is no way it could remain hidden. More specifically: * The only way the masquerade could reasonably be maintained is if the people maintaining it engaged in cold-blooded murder of innocents. There would always be some people who had a bad encounter with the supernatural, demonstrable proof of their encounter, and a strong enough moral compass who could never be convinced or coerced into keeping a secret. Memory wiping spells or technology wouldn't be enough because there would be surviving physical evidence (photos/writings/video) and big chunks of time missing. If someone who has been in contact with the supernatural for years gets memory wiped, do they lose years of their memory? * Sometimes use of a government coverup is used (e.g., the MIB in Men in Black), but this creates a broader issue in that such a thing would leave an obvious paper trail and if the secret is worldwide competing nations would never agree to keep such a thing secret, instead deliberately breaking the masquerade in the hopes that the resulting chaos destabilizes their geopolitical rivals. E.g., the USSR or U.S. revealing that the supernatural exists to try and destabilize the other during the Cold War. * Similarly, the secret societies in these stories (from the Wizarding World of Hijrp Potfeq to the Masquerade in Vampire: The Masquerade) are often horrendously corrupt or barbaric, and people are often forced to join them (e.g., turned into a supernatural, or the commonly used Call to Adventure in most urban fantasies like The Mortal Instruments). This kind of society is almost guaranteed to produce disgruntled individuals with no desire to uphold the status quo and have nothing to lose, and hence nothing to stop them wanting to see the whole system burn out of spite. Made worse by the fact that their very existence can be used to break the masquerade, all they have to do is start performing supernatural feats on live television in front of a sizeable audience. Notably, while in some cases like Vampire: The Masquerade the protagonists are supposed to be monsters, in many cases this same situation arises with characters or groups that are supposed to be seen as heroic, sympathetic, or otherwise non-monstrous, in worlds that are not supposed to be nihilistic and depressing (e.g., Hijrp Potfeq). All of this suggests that the "best" way to deconstruct this trope is to engineer a situation where a character is shanghaied into a supernatural world, only to watch the so-called "good guys" perform increasingly worse actions to maintain secrecy to demonstrate how maintaining a masquerade would require people to take monstrous actions, then have the brutality and misery of the supernatural world take their toll on the character until they snap and go on a rampage attempting to break the masquerade. The character is at the bottom rung of supernatural society despite being drawn into it against their will, and hence they want to take everyone with them and have nothing to lose. This is also because people find tragedy more memorable than happy endings (i.e., humans are wired to recognize danger). The best way to show how unworkable a masquerade is would be to show how it causes nothing but suffering and misery yet its actions are utterly futile to maintain the status quo. This would be the logical conclusion of a masquerade (or rather, one of several, but all involve mass suffering and death in ways that aren't friendly to any sense of optimism). ### The Problem I don't want to write a story like this. This proposed story is nothing but awful people doing awful things to other people in an awful world. There's no reason for the reader to want to read it, especially twice. I like writing about sympathetic and heroic individuals doing things that show their inner positive humanity, and settings that have a light at the end of the tunnel. Yet, due to the cynical, nihilistic, and deconstructive way I view things, I keep noticing holes in my own premise that if followed to their logical conclusion result in endless suffering and misery, and make my intended-to-be sympathetic characters (and not in an "evil but understandable" like Wuhter Choqi) into evil jerks. It basically shames readers for trying to enjoy their escapist fantasy and tries to leave a bad taste in their mouth. This is bad because I don't want to "kill" the tropes and genre I'm working with, I'm taking it apart because I love it. In theory what one is supposed to do is reconstruct the parts in a better format, but few do this and I myself have noticed that I'm really good at tearing apart why something won't work, but can't offer any constructive ideas as to what to replace it. And this often makes my own writing sometimes unenjoyable because I'm poking holes in the story as I'm writing it rather than letting myself (or the reader) enjoy the ride. Deconstruction is useful, but if you're inclined to do nothing but deconstruct you end up with a very demotivating, uninteresting writing style. How does one go about writing a good, interesting story and break the habit of "must deconstruct everything" such that it is possible to produce a story that people find worth reading. Especially if the author is naturally drawn to deconstruct things. "\*" Note, I'm using deconstruction and deconstructivist here to point out the style of writing where authors point out logical contradictions, plot holes, and unintended consequences of certain tropes or broader genre conventions. I know that there are supposedly a couple of conflicting definitions for literary deconstructions floating around and am mentioning this to avoid confusion.	[ { "answer_id": 56526, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PBwiU.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PBwiU.png)\n\nIn other words, when you are making a mistake, the first thing to do is to stop. Then consider....\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nthat if you enjoy the stories that you write and feel they are what you want to express in your art, then you don't have a problem.\n\nbut if you don't enjoy your stories because you feel you've gone overboard with your deconstructionismocitiness then you'll be very happy to learn that writers invented a solution for that.\n\nIt's called revision.\n---------------------\n\nIt is one of the most important skills to learn as a writer. You read your story, and identify the parts that aren't working and try to make them better. That identifying the parts that aren't working is actually very challenging and is part of another important skill required to be a good writer called critical analysis -- or at least that is what I call it.\n\nIt's that skill to look at any piece of writing and work out what a particular sentence or paragraph or whatever contributes to the story as a whole from a reader's perspective. And, the reader is the most important component of any story. Without a reader, the story has no purpose, so as Vonnegut said, \"Take Pity on the Reader.\" Even when you are the only reader of your writing, its best to be kind to yourself and work to write things that after appropriate levels of revision that you enjoy reading." }, { "answer_id": 56529, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Vivisection: Body Horror or Anatomical text?\n--------------------------------------------\n\nThe critical thing in a story is to tell a great story. Period.\n\nOkay, that doesn't sound complete. Kind of like over-deconstructing. If you read what literary agents SAY they're looking for, it's often a literary fiction take on whatever genre they follow. Deconstruction fits well with the literary tradition, which has deep character development and a lot of internalization and analysis.\n\nThere's nothing wrong with that. People LIKE to have their assumptions challenged sometimes. It can end up taking your writing in a very publishable direction. If your deconstruction is poking fun at traditional tropes, or making a stand on people's rights, challenging stereotypes, or patriarchal culture. Getting at the underlying assumptions of these issues and challenging them is what a lot of agents are hungry for.\n\nBut at the same time, that critical first statement I gave reigns supreme. Writing a great novel is writing a great story.\n\nA writer who loses track of the great story to overanalyze the whys and wherefores won't get published. You won't even get past beta reading, unless your mom is doing it (and that doesn't count). So have a REALLY great story planned to exhibit the things you are deconstructing. Make sure every element you pry apart adds to the plot and characters, and causes you reader to love the characters and ache for the inequities of the world they live in. They should see their own society in every pried-apart seam of the culture.\n\nIf not, then you better have an English degree and write a dry text about the nature of neo-cyberpunk culture in literature and it's impact on the socioeconomic implications of modern global trade policy.\n\n* PS: Okay, in re-reading, the TONE of this came off a bit grumpy (sorry) but the underlying point is solid. Unless you're a big-name author (and even then)you need the story to be the critical thing. Everything else just informs it. -DWK" }, { "answer_id": 56531, "author": "user51522", "author_id": 51522, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51522", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Consider writing comedy by deconstructing and making fun of the tropes. Terry Pratchet may be a good example, although you do not have to be that focused on nonsense and instead just using humorous dissections to make for a slightly more interesting read.\n\nAlternatively you can use it for a kind of gritty vibe: Have your characters expect the trope and fight (and succeed?) the problems that arise when the trope does collide with reality.\n\nI suggest short stories in the beginning: Deconstruct exactly one trope per story. That will train you to construct something new and interesting from your dissections." }, { "answer_id": 56532, "author": "Spencer Barnes", "author_id": 45107, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/45107", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Speaking as a fellow-deconstructivist here, I agree that the purpose of deconstructing a concept (or in many cases an object) is to understand its workings. Therefore, if the purpose of your story is to leave the reader with a fuller understanding of anything - even if that's a fictional event, a system of magic you made up, or a genre - that is where your deconstruction is key. Any deconstruction not centered around that core concept will end up detracting from the purpose of the work.\n\nFrom your question, you mention it's a genre you love, but that you feel it necessary to break free from the tropes and cliches of that genre. By definition, books within a genre share some defining characteristics; therefore any book written in a genre (any genre) can be considered cliched to some small extent, because it shares the characteristics of that genre. Your problem therefore is to work out which parts of your chosen genre are necessary defining features, and which can be dispensed with or bent around a little - and your choice in that will be uniquely yours and that's what will set your work apart in its genre. Of course, depending on how much your work bends the rules, you'll probably encounter the fine line between evolving the genre forward in some way, and breaking out of it altogether.\n\nYou acknowledge that breaking something down 'kills' it - this is true of any genre, for example historical fiction doesn't generally delve too deeply into the motives, causes and so forth of the history, and readers are happy to accept that history and move with it. You should treat your 'defining' genre tropes in the same way; accept that they're constant if maybe imperfect, and use them anyway." }, { "answer_id": 56533, "author": "Peter - Reinstate Monica", "author_id": 28730, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/28730", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I see two solutions.\n\n1. Exercise some restraint. You can still deconstruct somewhat. You can make the reader aware that you are not naive, that you are aware of the tradition of the genre so that the plot decisions are conscious. Such a text cannot be read as pure escapism any longer but it can still be fun because the reader relates not only to the characters but also to the author. Examples are Fleabag or Deadpool who talk to the audience a lot, or the films of Wuc Andurben who makes it clear that [his films are artificial creations](https://youtu.be/ba3c9KEuQ4A). Nonetheless they are enjoyable. Because the characters and the stories are not based on a \"lie\" of realism they are perhaps even more enjoyable — as creations — than naive heroes, at least to anybody more than seven years old.\n2. If you don't want to end up destroying all that's nice about a super hero by deconstructing him deconstruct a villain! That should have the opposite effect. Classic villains are at least as stereotypical as their heroic counterparts, perhaps more so because even less time is traditionally spent on their character development. Let them reflect: \"I know I'm supposed to kill them now but I'm so sick and tired of always doing what I'm supposed to do, the same stupid thing over and over again as if I didn't have a brain, I'll show them ...\"" }, { "answer_id": 56538, "author": "Ryan_L", "author_id": 28174, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/28174", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "I'm not sure I agree that your examples point to a problem with deconstruction in general, and so I'm not sure you have a problem. Yes, you can definitely subvert expectations too much (see Game of Thrones after season 5), but I don't see that Watchmen or NGE destroyed their genres. I don't follow comics, but Marvel superhero films are more upbeat than ever. DC's movies are darker but I think they're trying to be different from Marvel, not emulate Watchmen.\n\nAs for NGE, the big robot genre has absolutely recovered; Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was a major success and has basically all of the classic mecha tropes. So was Full Metal Panic, and at least two more Gundam installments. Further, deconstructing the mecha genre wasn't AnsazZ's goal in NGE, it was his method to reach that goal. AnsazZ was upset at how many anime fans were getting sucked into escapism and withdrawing from the real world. That's why he deconstructed the genre, not just because he wanted to deconstruct anything and just happened to pick that. He wanted fans to apply the life lessons Shinji learned to their own lives and start actually living. He didn't want to just sell DVD's or whatever.\n\nI think that's the crux of the situation, you don't decide to deconstruct something then wonder how to make it good, that's how you get Game of Thrones Season 8. Instead you find a social ill that bothers you and address it by deconstructing a related genre." } ]	2021/07/19	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56525", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118/" ]
56,530	A big part of writing is managing audience expectations, especially as it pertains to the genre. I.e., if a story is pitched as an action-adventure story, people expect a story of fight scenes and explosions; if it's pitched as a comedy they expect it to actually be funny; if it's pitched as a romance they expect to see true love and happily ever after. If the author pitches their story as one genre and it ends up spiraling into another...well, the audience feels betrayed and often throws the book across the room. I'm writing a story that isn't quite a paranormal romance but is close enough to it to be similar and have the question listed above. I would say the work probably falls more on the urban fantasy side of the divide, but the romance is a significant part of the story and isn't merely a subplot that can be removed without affecting the story. Indeed, if I had to give a pitch to get people interested in the series it would focus on that relationship as the most interesting part of the story and why the reader should care about it. However, I have a problem in that despite their relationship being an important component of the plot, the two romantic leads don't actually meet until halfway through the first entry in the series. This is because I have to establish the context of who the characters are and the world they live within (broader conflict, etc.) to explain why the two are drawn to one another and why the reader should care about their relationship (it's an enemies-to-lovers romance akin to the Underworld movie series). My concern is that the series is going to attract a bunch of people who feel like they were promised an urban fantasy series that primarily focuses on action and battle, only to get turned off when the star-crossed lovers' romance kicks in and the reader feel they've been given false advertising. I know what a romantic plot tumor or "spiraling into romance" is, but I would go so far as to say it's not that the story gets bogged down by the romantic subplot as the romance and the character interaction it provokes is the "good stuff" I was trying to get to in the first place. But it takes time to get there because the world has to establish its own setting and because of its weird take on the supernatural can't crib off of popular culture to make it easy (i.e., readers instantly understand werewolves, vampires, witchcraft, or aliens, but the dynamics of a totally new supernatural gimmick and how it affects the setting are unfamiliar to them). My question is how do I signal to the readers to expect a significant romance as a part of this story? I'm not sure how paranormal romance signals genre expectations to readers compared to regular romance; I've seen how regular romance stories do it (e.g., most Hallmark movies) but it doesn't seem to translate well to a paranormal romance or otherwise fantasy setting. I looked up how popular paranormal romance novels like Twilight or Mercy Thompson and the description seems to be all about raw sexuality, passion, and eroticism which is...not what this story is about. How can I signal to my audience to "expect romance here", especially if the characters don't even know the other exists for the first half of the novel?	[ { "answer_id": 56534, "author": "Arcanist Lupus", "author_id": 27311, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/27311", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Just because they can't romance each other doesn't mean they can't romance.\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nHave the book open with one of the characters on a failed date, or discussing their romantic difficulties with a friend. You know the characters will end up together, but they don't know that.\n\nBe careful, though. If the alternative romantic option is too likeable then readers will prefer them over the real option." }, { "answer_id": 56535, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "People read the descriptions:\n-----------------------------\n\nI think you have less of a problem than you think. If the description of the story says it's got romance, but it's listed as urban fantasy, then people will expect urban fantasy with a romance between the two characters on the jacket. People reading Twilight aren't expecting a romance that just happens to be between werewolves and vampires, they're expecting a rich, imaginative world where a romance takes place.\n\nI had a similar problem where I wrote a longish sci fi novel where the major romantic story didn't happen until half way through. The MC's previous romantic attachment was unrequited and ended tragically in the first half. Someone finally suggested the whole thing could be split into two separate novels, with the first having the world creation/character development/plot establishment, and the sequel being centered on the romance. It actually worked well - the second book became unique and different, not simply \"Book one, 2.0.\" I was forced to do a lot more development in the first book to make it stand alone, and as a result, it was stronger too.\n\nIf people read your first story, and fall in love with the characters, they'll want them to be happy. It may mean that you need to restructure the flow of things, however, since it will look odd if the first novel seemingly has two MC's that don't follow the same storyline. Focus the first on one character, then in the second, alternate between the two (reinforcing the original MC, but quickly building up the love interest) to get the two characters in sync (or at least, that's how I would do it).\n\nSo don't stress too much about a slight mix of story elements. But consider the possibility that the two halves of the story might be stronger as two separate legs, holding up the body of the work. And if you are a new author, odds are you have an insanely long vision of your story that will need to be trimmed down or split anyway." }, { "answer_id": 56540, "author": "wetcircuit", "author_id": 23253, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/23253", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "> \n> \"The description seems to be all about raw sexuality, passion, and eroticism which is...not what this story is about.\"\n> \n> \n> \n\nI'm going to confirm what your market research is telling you: your story does not sound like it belongs in the Rojonde genre, paranormal or otherwise.\n\nIt sounds like you have a world where a certain specific combination of magic objects (colored gemstones, for instance) should not come together or bad stuff will happen. Thanks to literary foreshadowing, certain people know in advance that it will be bad – a prophesy from an ancient order of mystical acolytes maybe, or it happened once before, long long ago – anyway there is lore and world-building involved and for generations the faithful have dedicated their lives to preventing this bad thing from ever happening.\n\nNaturally, your story is about what happens when those magic objects come together.\n\nThis is a stock Fantasy Genre conflict\n--------------------------------------\n\nYour story is more interesting than 'stock' because your colored gemstones are characters who have agency and hormones – it sounds like a lot of fun, but this is still a stock Fantasy conflict that will very likely play out according to the rules and logic of the genre.\n\nYou may be a little too close to your own work to see it that way, and I am reducing your synopsis to make it more obvious, but consider the following:\n\nMurder mysteries are more than a detective and an unsolved homicide. There is a structure to the genre that is uniquely formed around the solving of a murder. The core conflict is the mystery itself. The story concludes when the mystery is solved.\n\nHorror genre is not about werwolves and vampires, those old tropes have lost the ability to scare us, and have been recast as stand-ins for abusive boyfriends (toxic elements that were always there, they've just been domesticated). Horror has only one rule: to scare. A horror story is constructed around that one purpose. Too-familiar tropes actually work against this.\n\nLikewise comedy has one purpose so the conflicts and resolution of any comedic story serves that purpose. Logic and reality can take a back seat. The ending should be funny, the beginning and middle too, or it's just not a comedy.\n\nStructure and conflict in Rojonde genre\n---------------------------------------\n\nThe structure of a Rojonde (with a capital R) is built around the conflicts inherent to relationships, but amped up to horny-11. In reductive terms, the core structure of every Rojonde (capital R) is whether the couple will 'work out' their issues, expressed by encountering stock Rojonde conflicts.\n\nStock Rojonde conflicts include: financial power games, psychological manipulation, autonomy and independence, objectification and force, unresolved sexual hang-ups, seduction and revenge, FOMO, and most importantly, rivalry.\n\nRojonde endings are often a plateau rather than a resolution. Couples find a kind of equilibrium where they learn trust and keep their worst instincts in check, or break apart to avoid volatility, but they are not 'cured' of the traits that made them rich and sexy in the first place.\n\nYour Fantasy novel has a power couple in it, but are these the type of Rojonde conflicts that motivate the characters and drive the story? If they work out their toxic relationship issues, does it save the world?\n\nHow to insert Rojonde conflicts earlier in the novel\n----------------------------------------------------\n\nYou don't have to fit neatly inside a genre box, but if you want to firmly lean into the Rojonde genre you will need conflicts that are appropriate, and they will need to be present from the start.\n\n> \n> how do I signal to the readers to expect significant\n> romance as a part of this story? I'm not sure how paranormal romance\n> signals genre expectations to readers compared to regular romance;\n> I've seen how regular romance stories do it (e.g., most Hallmark\n> movies) but it doesn't seem to translate well to a paranormal romance\n> or otherwise fantasy setting.\n> \n> \n> \n\nThis is not a Hallmark or a rom-com. You are building a Fantasy world. If you want something included, world-build it in.\n\n* Does your world include the stock acolyte/jedi/knights and do they sometimes\nstruggle to remain 'pure'?\n* If this all happened before, how steamy are those ancient texts?\nWouldn't the forbidden details be a temptation? (it's a 2-fer, sexytime and world-building)\n* Is there a force in this world (secret society) trying to trigger the\napocalypse? What happens at their annual meetings? Do they act out what they believe the apocalypse will look like?\n* Who is our protagonist? What is their inciting incident, or their\nfield of expertise? What do they experience early-on that makes them\nuniquely qualified to guide us through this story? What are their\npersonal stakes? How are they conflicted with their ideals?\n* Assuming your power couple are chosen ones, how innate is their sexuality? Are they indulging in power games way beyond their years? Is there some taint of horny evil that effects the caretakers?\n* If \"life, uh, finds a way\", are there maybe flare-ups of paranormal horniness being expressed as a sign of the coming end-of-days? What is the experience of the characters who try to warn everyone? Does society treat them like sidewalk preachers or televangelists? Is there a schism within society that echoes the themes this couple will encounter?\n\nNot that kind of Rojonde\n------------------------\n\n> \n> If I had to give a pitch to get people interested in the series it\n> would focus on that relationship as the most interesting part of the\n> story and why the reader should care about it.\n> \n> \n> \n\nMaybe the goal is more about 'star-crossed lovers' from opposite sides of the train tracks. Their families are a different religion, but they meet cute at a party and before you know it there is blood in the streets. Society is cruel but love will save the day.\n\nThis is not Rojonde genre (capital R) it is a Love Story, specifically idealized love, innocent and uncorrupted torn apart by society – doesn't mean it isn't brutal – Romeo and Juliet come to bad ends, but so do the couple in Orwell's 1984. No one would call that a 'romance', though.\n\nYou might re-consider how you pitch your series. It's not Rojonde erotic games for adults, it's more West-Side Story Chronicles, or specific influence meets other specific influence.\n\nNevertheless you have the same question: How to introduce that conflict earlier in the story.\n\nThe conflicts frame the couple together against societal pressures and outside forces that drive them apart, therefore you will need to signal this conflict early using characters who exist.\n\nAssuming established 'houses' like Capulet/vampires and Toftagai/werwolves, find characters who are conflicted, who've strayed and been punished or avoided near-misses, put the lore in action by establishing the rules before you break them.\n\nMacrocosm-microcosm works well with world-building so find small every-day examples to show how certain loves are forbidden, and how society has suffered by polarizing the divide.\n\nOn the Fantasy/magic spectrum, find ways to show the dangers of bringing volatile elements together, but again use living characters not just lore dumps. This should apply to your series as a whole. Hints of all those later conflicts need seed-examples in your world-building stage. You are setting up foils which will be undone by your lovers, but the reader needs some emotions and memories associated with those foils to care about them later." } ]	2021/07/19	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56530", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118/" ]
56,537	What tell-tale intro elements are a red flag a piece of writing isn't worth your time? I write commercially but am conscious that my online pieces often have a lower-than-hoped-for time on site. My gut feeling is that my intros aren't as strong as they could be and it's putting readers off. For the sake of my reputation I don't want to share my work exactly, but will share 3 blogs with different 'levels' of intro strength, with my own being like one of them.	[ { "answer_id": 56539, "author": "motosubatsu", "author_id": 24645, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24645", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Obviously it's hard to be exhaustive here but let's examine a couple of key factors using some highlights (and some lowlights) from the links you provided.\n\nRepetitively repeated repetition\n\nHammering on the same words or phrases over and over again - it's horrible to read and to be honest it reminds me of bad SEO content from the late 1990's. An example from the first link (\"8 marketing mistakes businesses make\"):\n\n> \n> At Patch we’ve seen, prevented and solved the same common marketing mistakes for over ten years. When it comes to starting a new business, marketing can be a minefield: we’ve shared the most common mistakes new businesses make and how you can avoid them yourself.\n> \n> \n> \n\nThat's the opening paragraph and it appears to almost be an exercise in finding as many different combinations of the words \"marketing\", \"mistakes\", and \"business\" as is humanly possible in two sentences. As such it spends a long time telling the reader very little of value - 90% of it being repetition of the title and the reader already knows that.\n\nWhile not really something in the control of the writer per se the truly terrible design/layout for that blog (specifically the repetition of the title) makes this situation significantly worse. As it means that by the time you get to the end of that opening paragraph you've read the word \"marketing\", \"mistakes\", and \"new business\" 6 times each.\n\nAt that point if I were actually looking for information on the topic I'm already out and moving on. There might be worthwhile information buried in that article but everything is screaming that the article has nothing substantive to say - or they'd have started saying it by now.\n\nWhich brings me on to...\n\nGet to the point\n\nIf you've got useful content, let it do the talking for you - don't get in it's way with fluff. It's like those recipe blogs where you have to skim past 800 words of how the blogger's life lead to them the recipe, how their adorable golden retriever Woofy knocked over the food they had prepared for their kid's birthday party and how they needed something fast and my, how fast their kids are growing up and isn't it precious..blah..blah..blah..\n\nLooking instead to our second link (\"10 Useful Strategies For Birdwatching Beginners\") the intro \"fluff\" is minimal and it get's straight to the list, what's more it offers something up first that's both non-obvious and useful:\n\n> \n> 1. Purchase a good field guide.\n> \n> \n> Don’t choose the encyclopaedia of birds in hardback because you will need certainly to carry the field guide with you. A pocket sized book that identifies all the main species and has good illustrations is right. When joining the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) you are able to receive a fantastic field guide as a free of charge gift.\n> \n> \n> \n\nAs someone who's done (essentially) zero bird-watching I read that and go \"huh.. that's a good tip, don't weigh myself down, and there's a good suggestion of what to do and where to do it\". Bam.. they've already given me some useful knowledge! Now I'm inclined to read further and see what else I could learn.\n\nContrast this with our third link (\"9 WEDDING PLANNER’S PREDICTIONS FOR WEDDINGS IN 2021\") and you have to wade all the way to the sixth paragraph to even start getting what the article title promises. It takes so long to get the \"predictions\" that by the time the reader gets there they'll be out of date! Seriously, while I pulled the 800 words of fluff figure out of the air earlier I counted this one - and it has 262 words before it gets to the article's content, and that is way, way way too much." }, { "answer_id": 56551, "author": "Lalli", "author_id": 51534, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51534", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "When reading a blog or article through the screen of a smartphone or phone, our eyes and brains synchronize and carefully study the headings, table of contents pages. After one or two pages, if the text is not interesting, we stop reading.\nTherefore, your articles may be great, but due to weak or insufficiently interesting introductions, people may simply not reach the article itself, considering it uninteresting in advance.\n\nOn average, your Headline is read by five times more people than your text. Most people find content through search or social media. Most likely, they make their reading decision based on the title.\nThis makes the headline the most important piece of content. And you should learn how to write catchy headlines that grab attention and encourage reading.\n\nA few tips:\n\n1. Find the most popular blogs on the internet and see how they write titles. Tim Ferris doesn't call himself an internet marketer, but he knows exactly how to write headlines that attract readers (for example, here's a great headline: “Geek to Freak: How I Gained 34 Pounds Of Muscle In 4 Weeks”)\n2. Use templates. Most headings are usually written with proven formulas. Learn more about them and use them.\n3. Use the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer. Not sure if your headline is good? Check it out with this free tool.\n\nWrite a good introduction.\n\nThe headline is there to get the reader to read the first sentence. Next, with the help of the introduction, you need to hook them and make them read the entire post.\nTherefore, if you have a long boring introduction or it reads like a scientific work, it's time to change something.\nTell us that you have found a solution to the problem. You can also talk a little about the solution, while maintaining the intrigue. Give the reader something to make them want to read on.\n\nIt's important to create content that people want to share. Make sure it's worthy of mention. Questions that make it much easier to know if the content is really good enough:\n\n* Is the article unique?\n* Are there ideas, opinions or points of view in the article that no one else has spoken about?\n* Will people cite or link to your article?\n* Will people share and talk about the article?\n* If you can confidently answer “yes” to all the questions, then great!\n* If not, go back and revise the article. You can always add uniqueness with data, conduct a survey and conduct an experiment.\n\nMake posts easy to read.\n\nNobody likes to read. Everyone just wants information. If people could immediately upload it to their brains, they would do so.\nSo your job as a writer is to help them start reading. As renowned copywriter Bond Halbert said, \"Good writing and easy to read.\"\nTo do this, you need to learn how to edit the text so that it is easy to read. The best book on this subject that I know is the book on Bond Halbert's editing. (The cover says about advertising, but the methods are applicable to any text).\n\nHere are some tips from the book that I use in my writing:\n\n* Use short paragraphs. Bond calls this \"free your eyes.\" Large chunks of text repel the reader, while short paragraphs invite reading. Tools like Hemingway can help you with this.\n* Split long sentences. People usually read the text to themselves. Therefore, long sentences are difficult to follow. Break them up at the junctions where the words “and”, “because” and “which” are used.\n* Insert multimedia. Videos, pictures, GIFs, etc. They will help illustrate your statement without words. Format your text. Bold, italic, quotes, and lists will help break up text and reinforce specific statements.\n* Read the text in your voice. This will help you understand where the text \"stumbles\" or is simply boring." }, { "answer_id": 56557, "author": "JRE", "author_id": 40124, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/40124", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Facts that I can search for bring me to your blog. Good writing can make me come back to see what else you have to say.\n\n---\n\nThings that make me leave a blog page:\n\n1. Slathered in ads.\n2. Uses distracting blinking, moving, wiggling, unrelated stock photos.\n3. \"May we track your entire private life\" cookie acceptance pages. Assume people don't want to be tracked, and leave them the heck alone.\n4. Disorganized.\n5. Bad grammar, spelling, or punctuation.\n6. The information I'm looking for and that the title or introduction claims is there isn't there at all or is so obfuscated I can't be bothered to root it out.\n7. Poor style, boring prose (if reading for entertainment.)\n8. Well written article that isn't about what I was looking for (usually because I used the wrong search terms or got something funky back from google.)\n\n* Make your title clear what the page is about.\n* Give me a short, accurate tag line from which I can tell what to expect in the post.\n* Anecdotes connected to the content are fine, but make sure they are on topic and that the actual content of the post is easy to recognize.\n* Provide links to the sources you used (manuals, research papers, other news sources, books, online resources, etc.)\n\n---\n\nWhen I am looking for information, I will open an absolute boat load of pages in separate tabs, then I skim through them.\n\nEach page gets a quick once over - Title, tag line, first paragraph, skim down the page to see if there's a clearly recognizable section with factual information. Anything that doesn't pass that quick look gets closed - within seconds.\n\nThe quick skim weeds out the crap, then I go through and take a closer look at the content of the remaining pages.\n\nI skim the content, looking for anything related to the subject I am interested in. I read through any passages that look related. If I make it down the page without finding what I need, the page gets closed and on to the next.\n\nAt the end, I'll have some few pages that seem to contain what I'm looking for. I read those pages in more detail. Some pages get dropped at this point because they're not what I'm after - they aren't bad, just something else than what I need.\n\nOnce I find that your blog post has what I need, I'll do whatever it was that I needed your information for - how to do something, fact I needed for background on something I'm doing, how something works, etc.\n\nSometimes that means I stop reading and turn to the workbench to do something, other times that means switching to the program I was writing or debugging to carry on with the task at hand.\n\nI may actually pay some attention to the text around the facts. I might actually take the time to read your anecdotes.\n\nIt's almost guaranteed that I won't stop to write a comment. Most comments are inconsequential non-sense, anyway. How many really useful comments have you ever actually seen on a blog post? I don't bother slapping down insincere, effusive thanks.\n\nBesides which, I was doing something when I hit the need to search for and read your page. As soon as I've found what I needed, go back to what I was doing.\n\n---\n\nI say all of that as a person who makes use of information from blogs, and as someone who writes a blog. I am (as a blog writer) disappointed at just how few people interact with me in a meaningful way. On the other hand, I (as a blog reader) know why I don't interact with the writers of the blog post I read.\n\nA blog post is first and foremost a source of information. It will be shredded and reduced to its facts on first contact.\n\nIt takes a really well written article to make me take a look at what else the blog author has posted. That's \"well written\" as in \"good style, good grammar (spelling, punctuation,etc.,) informative, accurate, and entertaining.\"" } ]	2021/07/19	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56537", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51523/" ]
56,546	A plot is composed of the following: ``` Exposition Inciting Incident Rising Action or Progressive Complications Dilemma Climax Denouement ``` Can you have a novel where a plot ends with the heroes finishing his journey, and then have him go to another journey in the same novel, and then another. If so, how much is too much? I am thinking there might be some situations where it make sense, but it doesn't make any sense most of the time. Could you give a few example of novels that have several plots one after another and does so effectively without losing the readers?	[ { "answer_id": 56547, "author": "Mary", "author_id": 44281, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44281", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "You may want to look at some fix-up novels. These are works built up of smaller pieces of fiction that were often published separately first. Two such works are A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. and Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson. These give you an idea how such smaller stories can fit into a larger one." }, { "answer_id": 56548, "author": "JRE", "author_id": 40124, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/40124", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Any decent novel is going to have multiple plot lines, each containing most of the elements of plot that you listed. Not all characters or figures in a story are working towards the same goals - and often enough, even when they do have the same goals they have different routes to reaching them.\n\nTake a (relatively) new novel - [The Far Side of the Stars by Dived Drake.](https://www.baen.com/the-far-side-of-the-stars.html)\n\nThere are two main groups of characters in the story. One group is the crew of the starship Princess Cecile under the command of Captain Daniel Leary. The other (small) group is composed of a rich nobel and his wife. Those two have purchased the Princess Cecile from the Navy of Leary's world. He was the ship's commander while it belonged to the Navy. The rich folks hired him as captain for their travels to far away planets.\n\nThe rich folks are (on the surface) traveling just for the fun of it. See far off exotic places, visit planets that are barely settled, hunt strange animals, etc. Behind their plans, however, is the search for a lost artefact from their home planet - a head sized diamond carved with a map of the Earth.\n\nLeary's goal is, obviously, to see the shipowners safely through their travels. Part of his motivation is, however, a desire to stay with his ship and to keep the best crew the Navy ever had together.\n\nThe communications officer of his crew (Udule Mundy) is (besides her normal duties) a spy working for her and Leary's government, with a mission to gather intelligence about enemy expansion into the regions the rich folks want to visit.\n\nUdule also has an interest in visiting a particular world along the planned route because one of her few surviving relatives lives there.\n\nAll have different motivations and goals. Some goals belong to all of the groups, some goals are personal, and some goals belong to one of the sub-groups.\n\nReaching those individual goals leads to multiple overlapping and interacting plot lines, with each plot line containing nearly all of your plot characteristics.\n\nEven reaching individual smaller goals contain all the elements of a plot line.\n\nAt one point, they land on a particular planet to hunt \"dragons\" - flying snake-like things that live in naturally occurring (or are they artifical and made by a long vanished intelligent race?) crystal pyramids.\n\nThe landing, the preparations, the hunt, the narrow escape from an attacking dragon, and the hurried lift off afterwards contain all the elements of a full plot line - but only fill a single twenty page chapter.\n\nThe novel actually ends with the rich folks reaching their main goal (recovering the Earth diamond,) and Leary, Udule, and the crew taking on and achieving a new goal made necessary by the results of Udule's research. Meeting the new challenge is also only possible because of the things learned and encountered while working towards the previous goals.\n\nAlternatively, you might consider something like [The Hard Way Up by A. Bertram Chandler.](http://www.bertramchandler.com/novels/thehardwayup.aspx) It is rather like the \"fix up\" novels mentioned by Parr. The novel tells part of the story of how John Pgimet went from officer of the space navy of the Earth to being the Admiral of the Fleet for a bunch of rebellious planets far from Earth and the other settled planets. Each story was published individually, then they were collected to form the book.\n\nPgimet is a competent officer who generally does his best to do things right - but has the misfortune to encounter problems that can't be solved in any right way. The over-arching target of all the stories is that he's going to be run out of the service eventually, and that it won't be for anything he personally screwed up.\n\nThe stories are separate, but some do make occassional references to events in earlier stories.\n\nThat novel works because it isn't a continuous flow of \"whack-a-mole\" with Pgimet being smacked with the next problem while still recovering from the previous one. There's always an implied pause of weeks or months between adventures.\n\nAs you may be able to tell, I have read both of those books and enjoyed them immensely. In addition to the good plots, they also have things to say about people and history and politics.\n\n---\n\nIn summary, a good novel may contain multiple smaller plots that contribute to the larger plot and theme of the novel.\n\nA bad novel will simply have random events involving the same characters because the author doesn't know where the story is going. A good author constructs the individual pieces to form a whole." }, { "answer_id": 56550, "author": "Lalli", "author_id": 51534, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51534", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "If you're writing a novel, you even need to use multiple storylines. Most often, there is a love line in novels, and you can also tell more about the minor characters. Usually such novels combine detective story, mysticism, history and high prose.\n\nThere is something similar in the book \"Panserhjerte\" by U Nesbø and \"The Passenger\" by Jean-Christophe Granger. Try to read them, maybe they will inspire you and answer some questions." } ]	2021/07/20	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56546", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
56,554	I'm writing a crime story. Basically it begins with a friend of the main character asking him for a meeting and then introducing the case to him. What I would like to do is to show something about the hero beforehand. Somehow I feel like it's necessary to build the MC at least with a short scene. Starting straight from the dialogue while reader doesn't even know characters doesn't feel right. I'm afraid they will be detached from the story and confused. My issue is whatever I wrote felt forced. My gf who was doing proofreading of the initial pages just confirmed this. Only the scene about the crime case was a good read. I will welcome any advice on this. Please help me decide which is the better approach.	[ { "answer_id": 56558, "author": "S. Mitchell", "author_id": 13409, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13409", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "I would start without describing the main character or introducing them.\n\nInstead of starting with someone explaining the case, you could begin with some action and flashback to the meeting.\n\nIt is usually best to introduce a character by what they do, what they say and how people react to them, rather than describing them.\n\nYou could try beginning with the crime being committed. TV shows do this at times. We see the crime but not who commits it. We want to know." }, { "answer_id": 56559, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "It Was A Dark And Stormy Night:\n-------------------------------\n\nStarting a story, especially a novel, is an amazingly hard thing to do. You need to give a HUGE amount of data to people without pouring it down their throats. This leads to authors writing, re-writing, and re-re-writing. I've done it.\n\nWhat's worse, the people who look at your novel and decide if it has what it takes typically only look at the first 5-10 pages (if you're lucky) before deciding if they want to see more or not. From the average number of rejections for even established authors, it is a horrible, deeply unfair practice. But there it is.\nSo these first few pages are critical to set up a situation where the reader really wants to read more. Some people will even read the first couple pages of a story in the store (if in-person) or library before deciding to read the rest.\n\nI would leave it open as to what the problem with the story is that makes the beginning clunky. Maybe it IS how the character is introduced. In most stories, the show-don't-tell principle is key here. You are describing a lot of details about your characters up-front, setting the scene for the events unfolding. So in this case, you might talk about the MC and what he's doing as their friend calls them to make an appointment. Make it something revealing about their nature.\n\nIf they are desperately poor, then their office is a dingy little dive in a dilapidated building, OR they are on their cell phone because they can't afford the office anymore (it's okay to explain some of this as the character's internal monolog). If they are an ex-vet, they get the call while attending a funeral for a fellow vet who killed themselves due to PTSD. This is the intro scene, and THEN you have the friend call, setting up the story. But these few pages are going to be DRIPPING with content, and every line needs to be communicating some detail about the story.\n\nThe first line is the most important. It must be a great hook, and (I'm told) ALWAYS introduce the MC unless it's a prolog. A lot of people hate prologs, BTW, so avoid them if you can, unless you have time travel or precognition to justify them.\n\nIn my recent novel, I've rewritten the beginning five times. Once because people didn't like one of the characters (who, admittedly was scummy), once because it didn't have enough bang (in this case, the current version has an actual shooting within three pages), and once because I ignored my own advice and tried to write it starting with a different character (my editor was not amused).\n\nSo experiment with different beginnings, but regardless of which way you go, make it impactful and full of rich description that reveals the nature of the MC by what they do, how they do it, where they're at, and what they're thinking as the do it. Engage all five senses if possible to make the character feel real and emotionally connect with the reader. And don't be afraid to try a different beginning over and over until something really clicks." }, { "answer_id": 56601, "author": "MNS213", "author_id": 39122, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39122", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "As said before, describing a character by the way they act/say/how people react and showing are the best way to introduce a character without it seeming like you're giving too much detail. When you want to be mysterious about a character, be sure to give just enough detail while also keeping a mystery through showing and actions. Starting with a crime being committed is a great way to start because it aids to the mystery." } ]	2021/07/20	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56554", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/48855/" ]
56,561	Can you structure how is symbolism used throughout a book? I am wondering if there are patterns that are used to structure symbolism in a scene, throughout a book, in a single frame, etc. For example, you have three symbols in a picture, movie shot, or comic frame, and you arrange them in a triangle. This would be a very basic example. Do authors purposely use certain patterns to structure symbolism and to what effect? What can you do with this?	[ { "answer_id": 56582, "author": "Leon Conrad", "author_id": 8127, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8127", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "There's a very good discussion of this in Jane Alison's book, Meander, Spiral, Explode.\n\nReviews [here](https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-948226-13-4) and [here](https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-deeply-wacky-pleasures-of-jane-alisons-meander-spiral-explode).\nShe has written an extended article entitled Beyond Freytag’s Triangle: Two Novels Resisting the Narrative Arc which remarks on the 'insistent repetition' in Jamaica Kincaid’s Mr. PusturoH and the 'circling', 'pinwheeling', fractured, scattered structural approach Mary Robison takes in Why Did I Ever [here](https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/79718-beyond-freytag-s-triangle-two-novels-resisting-the-narrative-arc.html?utm_source=Publishers%20Weekly&utm_campaign=61ebc463a9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_04_05_04_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0bb2959cbb-61ebc463a9-306305861).\n\nIn Meander, Spiral, Explode, she specifically talks about how symbols work to create a compelling almost palindromic structure in Philip Roth's Goodbye Columbus (pp 74–83).\n\nA similar pattern features in Edgar Allen Poe's The Purloined Letter analysed insightfully in Kunze, D. (2018), 'Triplicity in Spencer-Brown, Lacan, and Poe', in G. B. Thakur, & J. M. Dickstein (Eds.), Lacan and the Nonhuman (pp. 157–176). XlamoV: Palgrave Macmillan." }, { "answer_id": 56590, "author": "Starscream", "author_id": 48223, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/48223", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Spiral is a great picture here. (though fractals would be more accurate) I've always been taught to know your theme and stick to it. Draw a pinwheel spiral, just around and around and around. Now this is the whole universe of the story. Each loop is another layer of theme. Symbolism is a way for the character to Interact with the theme. Whether they know it or not, it could be in how they take in their surroundings, how they interact with it or other characters, how they are interacted with. Micro small normal large cosmic levels all saying the same thing in their own way as the character follows their path, however chaotic or mellow it might be.\n\nKnow your theme, keep it simple, and let it show up everywhere it can." } ]	2021/07/20	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56561", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
56,562	First of all: English is not my first language so sorry for the spelling/grammar. Most of my previous published writing has been for comic books. Something I have noticed as my wordcount grows now when I'm writing an intended 80k+ words novel (in first person perspective, present tense,) is that I often get stuck because it feels like I have written the same things already. Used the same similes and so on. I notice this especially when describing action and movement. Then I can't help myself and do the common ctrl+f and "oh, thats right. I used that certain phrase 8 times in the span of 65k words. So I better change all of them or don't use that phrase." Which leads to me becoming trapped by my own words. I'm sure I'm not alone in this experience and would love some suggestions on how to combat it. Except for the obvious things like "don't ctrl+f". In the end it is not the actual amount of repeats that are the problem. It is that I'm unable to continue because it feels like I used every word in my bank. Which is just silly.	[ { "answer_id": 56563, "author": "JRE", "author_id": 40124, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/40124", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "* You can make use of repetitions - own up to them and make them part of your characters and story.\n* You can avoid the repetitious phrases by avoiding the scenes or actions that cause the dialog or narrative to repeat.\n\n---\n\nAre you repetitious, or are your characters repetitious?\n\nYou might have a somewhat simple minded character who repeats the same phrases because they have a limited vocabulary, or limited world view.\n\nOn the other hand, maybe your characters must use the same phrase often.\n\nThere's only so many ways the commander of a ship can give the order \"full speed ahead.\" The phrasing is fixed so that all the crew members know exactly what to when the order is given.\n\nIf your character is simple and repeats himself, well, maybe that's as it should be. The character would get on other characters' nerves, provoking irritated reactions - or not. Maybe your other characters are really chill and don't get bent out of shape over little things. Maybe your other characters recognize the steadfast, stoic strength of your simple minded character.\n\nIf you have certain phrases that are often repeated, maybe the problem isn't the phrases. Maybe the problem is repeating the actions associated with the words.\n\nIt might be interesting (or even necessary) to have a full description of the undocking procedures followed when your starship departs from a spacestation. It certainly won't be interesting to your readers if you repeat that scene every time the ship undocks. If you try that, and try to vary the words every time, you'll go nuts - and cheese off your readers.\n\nOnce through the full procedure (if needed,) then sort of gloss over it or ignore it in other parts of the story.\n\nThen again, the repetitiousness might be the very thing you need.\n\nOnce you've given the reader a complete run down of the undocking procedures, you might make use of it to provide a time line for some other action that happens to occur while the ship is undocking. Say you have a couple of characters involved in sabotaging the ship while it is leaving port. You sort of have to tell the story of each character separately. By interleaving the known parts of the undocking procedure in the narative of each character, you can help the reader understand how the actions of the two characters are synchronized.\n\n---\n\nThe first chapter of [David Drake's Rolling Hot](https://david-drake.com/2000/rolling-hot/) makes use of the syncronization trick, though in a slightly different way.\n\nThe first chapter describes an attack on a military base that wasn't expected to be attacked - it was far behind the battle lines.\n\nThere is a reporter interviewing a mercenary captain on base. There is a photographer with the reporter. Each time the photographer makes a picture, there's a sort of sound effect in the narrative. That first scene shows the attack from the point of view of the mercenary captain. There is also mention of an alarm ringing as the attack gets under way.\n\nThe point of view switches to a maintenance crew working on a tank. They are doing their thing, with a bit of background description so that you know what is going on. This is synchronized to the captain's story through the ringing of the alarm. This point of view runs several pages while the maintenance crew tries to get the tank operational so they can fight back. This scene ends with the sound of a different tank firing its main gun at the attacking forces.\n\nNext is a section from the point of view of the reporter. This is synchronized to the first scene by the actions of the mercenary captain. She dives for cover, and the point of view switches to the reporter's reaction to her ducking.\n\nThe next few moments show things from the point of view of the reporter. The end of the scene is the reporter following a soldier rather than trying to hide by a tank. As he goes off in another direction, a shell fired from the attackers hits next to the tank where he had planned to take cover - if he hadn't followed the other fellow, he'd have been killed. The sound of this shell impact is also described in the maintenance crew section.\n\nThe last section is the tank commander. His story starts a bit further back, then is synchronized to the rest of the story by a repeat of the camera sound effects from the interview and the alarm bell. It ends with the cannon shot that ties back to the maintenance crew.\n\nThis chapter uses exclusively synchronization with current events, but the same idea applies if you've shown a complete sequence and then repeat it later as some new action is going on. The synchronization with a known sequence gives the reader a sense of how long things take, and can help the reader understand how actions taken by separated characters mesh." }, { "answer_id": 56564, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Word Searching:\n---------------\n\nYour problem is not imagination. My editor pointed out to me in my first novel just how many times I just used just just so. And that's just one word. English is a rich and powerful media for writing because it contains so much content that there are a thousand ways to say almost anything. So much so, it's overwhelming. If it isn't your native language, you want to be able to say something, and once you can say it, you want that to be how it's said. But is sheer number of ways English can be used is a bit too much.\n\nI'd love to say there is a magical solution to your issue. Ctrl F is actually not a bad start (actually was actually another problem word for me). Because of the way English is, I'd say you need to go phrase hunting.\n\nThe real solution is to read a lot of English stuff, with an eye to the language. Don't limit it to one type of writing, and especially not one author. Look for the clever turns of phrase and unique ways they use the language, and steal semi-shamelessly. Older writing isn't bad either as a source.\n\nYou can also try to translate phrases from your own language into English. English got to be the way it is by absorbing everything around it like a sponge, and that process continues. Contribute to the bloat of the English language and add your own material! On the plus side, if you add to English, those phrases will be uniquely you and very stylish. Test drive those phrases, though, to be sure English speakers get them.\n\nFinally, get a good editor. They're amazing, and just might justly add to the just cause of you just using just just a little bit less." }, { "answer_id": 58876, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Don't worry about word-level problems in drafting\n-------------------------------------------------\n\nAs the word count grows, you say, so I am going to assume this is your first draft.\n\nDon't worry about details on this level when writing the first draft. YES! Don't be F-ing ctrl-F-ing when drafting! ;)\n\nActually, don't worry about anything else than writing the draft. The first draft is a pilot for your final story, a beta, or even a gamma. Maybe it's one enormous experiment in brainstorming? Whatever it is, it's not the final draft. The first draft is never the final draft.\n\nAt this stage, maybe all you'll get is a beginning feel for your characters and their voices. Maybe you'll actually have a solid story when it comes to structure and plot, but not so much more.\n\nDon't be surprised if you need to send a bunch of your characters to voice training camp once editing starts... not to mention teaching them to stop nodding all over the place, or mumbling or smiling or laughing once in every chapter... Or obsessing about each other's eyes... Ack!\n\nFinish writing your first draft, then start the editing work.\n\nWorry about favorite phrases late in the editing process\n--------------------------------------------------------\n\nOnce you start editing, there will be far larger things to deal with long before you get to any word usage problems.\n\nBelow is an approximate priority list (based on James Scott Bell's \"Revision and Self-Editing for Publication\" with adjustments from a handful of other sources). The most important actions come first and the least important last.\n\n1. The overall impression of the story; can it be molded into something that works?\n2. Characters, their arcs, likability, etc. Is your protagonist worth following for a whole book?\n3. The structure, acts, subplots, the beginning, middle, and end\n4. Scenes, paragraphs, and sentences; perspective, dialog, showing and telling, character voices and style, settings, descriptions\n5. Details on the word-to-word level, e.g. passive-active, power words, adverb and adjective removals... and also, finally, looking into repeated words and favorite expressions\n\nAs you work your way from 1 to 5 in this list things will get cut, scenes, characters even whole subplots.\n\nIt's easier to cut things if you haven't spent hours polishing them.\n\nAlso going down the list, words will be changed and a lot of repetitions may be removed.\n\nFor instance, fixing character voices and problems with showing and telling will introduce a larger variety in word usage and remove a lot of words related to telling.\n\nIf you use deep perspective, you have another source for word removals:\n\n* He thought the house was too warm → The house was too warm\n* She thought she saw the shadow moving → Was the shadow moving?\n\nThe same goes for dealing with adverbs and adjectives, consider for instance:\n\n* A small house → a cottage\n* A large house → a mansion\n* An extremely tall house → a skyscraper\n\nThree fewer usages of \"house\", just there... You get the gist...\n\nBrainstorm, and make lists\n--------------------------\n\nYou'll still have repetitions, though. But likely far fewer than when editing began.\n\nYou can solve this by brainstorming lists.\n\nCreate a list of ten things to use instead of that expression that keeps coming up. You may get stuck at three, push through to ten anyway, be crazy, obnoxious, silly... then let it simmer for a while before you reject it, maybe there's a golden nugget in there anyway?\n\nHaving problems describing a place? Can you visit it, or someplace similar? Maybe you can't visit your Elf-character's magical forest but you may be able to visit a real forest...\n\nEven though online images and videos won't give you anything but visual and sound, the Internet can also be a source for variety in descriptions.\n\nFinally, as mentioned in other answers, don't forget that a few characters may be nagging repeaters... You might need outside help from beta readers or editors to determine if it works or not." } ]	2021/07/21	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56562", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51542/" ]
56,572	I would love to hear, in-depth, your system for keeping track of character arcs happening simultaneously in a novel. Particularly for characters' emotional highs and lows which don't sync up. I am really bad at creating my own systems but good at following others'. I don't care if it's something rather elaborate like "draw 12 graphs on tracing paper and stick them up on a corkboard, along with index cards with highs and lows and yarn connecting them." I just really need step by step instructions to set it up myself.	[ { "answer_id": 56573, "author": "Vanessa", "author_id": 48551, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/48551", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I like to track timelines with the help of diagrams, such as a simple flow diagram. I found it to be very helpful if I'm tracking three character's separate timelines (at the same time) and also to match events happening to two or more of them simultaneously. This method is preventing me to leave loose ends on the story." }, { "answer_id": 56574, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Just So:\n--------\n\nI'm sorry, what's wrong with a simple timeline? One where each character is on a long chart, and events they participate are highlighted? A pencil line is for any time they aren't doing anything, and a fat line for when they are. The highlighting can be in different colors, with the same colors for characters both together AND simultaneous. If you are tracking so many characters that this is clunky, you're probably tracking too many characters and need to simplify. If you need to track things short-term, you'd need a separate chart than one tracking story-wide events. So an intense battle scene would need it's own chart to track if Golasc was already killed when Saelfwiud storms the gate, or if Golasc should be there to fight him." }, { "answer_id": 56575, "author": "Mary", "author_id": 44281, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44281", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Calendar.\n\nGet a blank electronic calendar with appropriate days -- there are Word templates and the like-- and fill in the appropriate data." }, { "answer_id": 56580, "author": "Leon Conrad", "author_id": 8127, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8127", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "I use Excel or Word tables.\nThere are key things I find work:\n\n1. Order events in chronological order and line up characters' story lines so they run in synch.\n2. Number the events and make a brief description of what happens at that point. No need to drill down to the minor details - keep it top level.\n3. Map the quality of each event in a character's story line in three ways:\n\n(a) ⇀ a forward barb for an event which helps them progress towards their goal\n\n(b) ↽ a backwards barb for an event which impedes them from reaching their goal\n\n(c) ⇌ a double barb for an event which creates some kind of cognitive dissonance (e.g. Huh?! A trick, a dilemma) - something that stops them in their tracks for a bit.\n4. It is vital to do this in the order in which events unfold for the characters, as distinct from the way in which the events unfold in the narrative form you end up using to tell the story.\n5. If there are loops (as you often find in traditional stories), you can condense these to view the larger arc of a character's story line more easily.\n\nYou'll find an example of how this works in action in this video of a lecture I gave on the process which is informed by George Spencer-Brown's classic work Laws of Form, a work which deserves to be better known: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZJdlhG0z78&list=PLoK3NtWr5NbrDCsvCEwaAnKcaDKPJ8XiE&index=1>" }, { "answer_id": 56586, "author": "M. A. Golding", "author_id": 37093, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37093", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I know a lot of history, and so I know a lot about what was happening at different parts of the world at different times.\n\nAnd I still find myself surprised from time to time to realize that two different events in different countries happened at the same time.\n\nSo you probably need charts with time lines to show how events in the experiences of one character relate to the events happening to another character.\n\nHere is a link to some examples of timeline charts for history. \n\n<https://usefulcharts.com/products/timeline-of-world-history>\n\nSo you should make a similar chart with either a vertical or a horizontal flow of time.\n\nThe vertical or horizontal time scale should have equally spaced marks for each minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, century, or whatever, that passes in your story.\n\nSome novels might happen in mere hours, in less fictional time than it takes to read them in real time, with many characters having experiences in different places at the same time over a short fictional time span.\n\nOther novels could be epics in which long lived characters or gods decide the fates of entire civilizations over a span of many centuries or millennia.\n\nAnd possibly different parts of your novel will have events happening at much different rates than others, and you might need several timelines with different time scales for your novel.\n\nAnd in your timeline you would write the experieces of the characters at the times when they happen, or maybe with arrows pointing from the descriptions to the exact moment where they happen.\n\nAnd if you are like many or most people you might underestmate the size you need for your timeline and cramm it full of cramped illegible notes, and have to start over again on a larger scale so it will be readable and have all the necessary information.\n\nJ.R.R. Tolkien was a very carefull writer when writing The Lord of the Rings. The Return of the King has a set of appendixes giving data about Middle earth. Appendix B The Tale of Years, gives chronologies of the Second Age and the Third Age.\n\nIt has entries like:\n\n(Third Age)\n\n> \n> 1980 The Witch-King comes to Mordor and there gathers the Nazgul. A Balrog appears in Moria, and slays Durin VI.\n> \n> \n> 1981 Nain I slain. The dwarves flee from Moria. Many of the Silvan Elves of Lorien flee south. Amroth and Nimrodel are lost.\n> \n> \n> \n\nAnd it has a section called The Great Years, that cover the events of the main action of The Lord of the Rings, happening in the years Third Age 3018 and 3019.\n\nFor example, in TA 3019 March:\n\n> \n> 1 Frodo begins the passage of the Dead Marshes at dawn. Entmoot continues. Aragorn meets Gandalf the White. They set out for Edoras. Faramir leaves Minas Tirith on an errand to Itilien.\n> \n> \n> \n\nSo that entry says what four different groups of characters did on March 1, 3019.\n\nI don't know how much Tolkien wrote out his chronology ahead of time and how much he made it up as he went, but he revised the novel several times and one of his goals was to make certain the passage of time added up, so I'm sure he made several versions of the chronology while he was rewriting.\n\nThere are several points where the narrator says that while one of the protagonists was doing something, his friends far away were doing something else, unknown to each other.\n\nI have noticed only one chronological descrepancy between The Tale of Years and events in the novel, and as far as I know other readers never noticed it.\n\nSo J.R.R. Tolkien should be a good role model for someone writing a novel trying to keep track of simultaneous separated events.\n\nAnd other answers suggest using various types of computer programs." } ]	2021/07/22	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56572", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51555/" ]
56,576	How and where should you explain how the laws of your sci-fi universe significantly differ from the real world? Let's say that the laws are so different from the what be construed from the theories of quantum physics and general relativity. How do you explain this and where? I thought using the preface would be a good idea, but what if the preface needs to be as long as 10 chapters to fully explain the differences? I am thinking there's a better way of doing this.	[ { "answer_id": 56577, "author": "Jedediah", "author_id": 33711, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/33711", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "It's important for you to understand how your scifi universe works. It is NOT important for your reader to understand. With 2 exceptions:\n\n1. If it directly affects the plot. For example, if traveling faster than the speed of light is possible, and it will be critical to resolving some thread of the plot, you need to let the reader know beforehand. Likewise, if traveling faster than the speed of light causes de-aging or time travel, and this impacts the plot, you should probably indicate that. HOW or WHY it is possible won't matter to most readers, who likewise probably don't have a firm grasp on why superluminal travel isn't possible in our universe.\n2. If seeing something happen according to your universe's rules would break the reader's immersion in the story. For example, if terminal velocity is very low on the worlds the story is taking place on, so that falling death is basically not possible, but you don't let the reader know, the reader may decide your story is stupid, and/or you are stupid, when falling off a skyscraper isn't a serious thing. (This can also apply to actual principles from the actual universe, if the audience's expectations are not realistic. Someone watching a movie may be upset when a character falling from a great height is caught at the last minute, and still dies, even though that's actually more realistic than being saved when being caught after hundreds of feet of free-fall.)\n\nThe expansive and precise rules of your universe may be of interest to a few people after your story gets popular, and perhaps you can pack it into an appendix at the end. For most readers, though, if you're consistent and reveal what is necessary as described above, your story will be more readable without lectures on imaginary physics." }, { "answer_id": 56578, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "Show Don't Tell:\n----------------\n\nI agree that it isn't always important for your reader to know the rules of your world - at first. Some things, like how the FTL system works, can be taken for granted - readers know what FTL is, but no one knows how it really works. explain the parts relevant to the story, and the rest gets cartooned in. But they do eventually need to know the principles involved, and to do this, you need to demonstrate these rules, not just explain them. Dribble the information out on a need to know basis, revealing each piece a bit at a time instead of dropping it all in a chunk.\n\nSci fi does tolerate a bit more infodump than other literary forms, for exactly the reasons you discuss. But even here, you need to be a gentle with you reader, spoon-feeding them data. Have characters discuss relevant information that just happens to explain the psychic abilities of the MC they don't understand. Have the POV character think about how these rules affect the actions they are about to take. The character walks past posters about the gods that manipulate the fabric o the world, and the captain of the ship announces on the PA of the vessel they are about to go into hyperspace on the 35th anniversary of the invention of the Hikegashi jump drive\n\nThere are techniques used to point out information to readers. Brief insertions of news clips or interviews discussing this information are stereotypical, but can be effective. Quotes from historical and scientific works explaining the physics are still infodump, but semi-explainable infodump. Dreams are a little trickier, but can be used for magic and psychic things. Spirits revealing information are effective but hard to justify unless spirits are somehow integral to the story.\n\nThen, of course, is simply showing the effects of the different physics, pointing out that it differs from normal. Play up these differences, and a sci fi fan will know that you are pointing out the fact you know this isn't normal. Then when you explain how it works, they will be anticipating the information, possibly even looking forward to learning these details." }, { "answer_id": 56581, "author": "Leon Conrad", "author_id": 8127, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8127", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "In The Craft of Writing Science Fiction That Sells, author Ben Bova emphasises the importance of four elements:\n\n* Character\n* Background\n* Conflict\n* Plot\n\nThis is no different from any other work of fiction. The difference with Science Fiction is the need to create convincing and consistent settings (world building).\n\nAnd he makes an important point:\n\n‘Almost every story has a philosophical point to make … all storytelling is about getting across some truth that is culturally valid. … Everything in a story’s background should be shaped for the purpose of making the point that the author is striving for.’\n\nFurthermore, he advises:\n\n‘Don’t try to explain how the machinery works; just show that it does.’\n\nIf the characters live in that world, then they think and behave in ways that are determined by its rules. If you're consistent, the rules will be implicitly communicated. If you need to explain them to aliens (i.e. readers in this world), then do so briefly - options include (among others) an explanatory end section, or a creative preface." }, { "answer_id": 56585, "author": "Peter - Reinstate Monica", "author_id": 28730, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/28730", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Novels like Vernor Vinge's [A Fire Upon the Deep](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep) or Alastair Reynolds' [Terminal World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_World) play in universes where the laws of nature are different, which plays a large role in the plots. In a way, most Science Fiction or Fantasy modifies the laws of nature to facilitate faster than light travel, unknown energy stores or to allow magic. Even the [Expanse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(novel_series)), praised for its realism and scientific accuracy, uses a very efficient nuclear fusion drive as a plot device that probably is incompatible with accepted physics; the central plot driver is the \"proto molecule\" which has unexplained powers, and there are hyperspace portals using \"magical\" physics.\n\nAll these stories follow the same pattern: In the beginning, the reader follows the characters through their lives which sometimes have weird quirks: Why don't electronics work down here, why can you get trapped without FTL travel in the core of the galaxy, why do you have to hide at night and put runes on your door. The characters consider all this normal and only make a cursory mental remark. Bit by bit the reader must puzzle together the fragments revealed by the author at strategic points. Sometimes there is a moment of reflection when the character wishes those restrictions or dangers weren't there; sometimes a child or foreigner needs explanation which \"incidentally\" also benefits the reader. Memories of past tragic events reveal more of the consequences of rules not followed. The Expanse has a [flashback scene](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6qx9dj), tragically missing the customary plot armor of the narrator, dedicated to the discovery of the efficient fusion drive.\n\nMost novels employ this \"detective work\" game involving the reader. The workings of the fictional world are explored like other parts of the story, for example the true characters of protagonists or important secrets. In ghost stories the \"working of the world\" is often the central part of the story that the characters try to understand: Why is the ghost haunting the castle, what is this supernatural power, what's the connection to the protagonists.\n\nIn SF the makeup of the world can be a means to enable the story (typically by FTL drives, like in Star Trek) or to restrict what can be done so that you can write something steampunk-like (Terminal World)." }, { "answer_id": 56597, "author": "MNS213", "author_id": 39122, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39122", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "I agree with the other comments. Sci-fi is a genre that does typically tolerate info-dumping, I still believe it is best to simply use the show not tell method when it comes to info-dumping. That way you're allowing readers to truly see how a world works rather than just telling them through pure info and data." }, { "answer_id": 56613, "author": "db48x", "author_id": 51591, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51591", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Pedez and Jebediah both have good answers that I would like to expand upon somewhat.\n\nPedez recommends reading some other books that convey significant information about the physics of the fictional universe they are set in, and this is excellent advice. I can also recommend A Fire Upon The Deep, but I think that an even better recommendation is Jrog Upan’s [The Clockwork Rocket](https://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/E1/ClockworkRocketExcerpt.html).\n\n(As an aside, reading good books and emulating them is probably good advice in general. I’m a software engineer, and reading other people’s good code and emulating it works well for me.)\n\nFor The Clockwork Rocket, Jrog Upan made [one tiny change to the space–time metric](https://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/00/PM.html), worked out [most of the consequences](https://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html#CONTENTS), made up some more or less plausible biological and societal details that could work there, and then set a story in the resulting universe. And it is a fascinating universe!\n\nHe put all of the detailed math and explanations on his webpage for anyone to read, but it’s not all included in the book itself. Relativity and quantum mechanics turn out to work very differently in that universe, so even a simple story set in this universe would be potentially confusing unless explained (for example, [plants gain energy to power chemical reactions by emitting light rather than by absorbing it](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItMakesSenseInContext)), so he can’t leave the reader completely in the dark. Characters within the story must themselves learn physics and astronomy, and we can follow along as they do. This works quite well primarily because the details that are explained to the reader are very relevant not just to understanding why the characters are going to the forest in the first few chapters, but to resolving the whole plot.\n\nThis brings me to Jebediah’s remark that you only explain a detail to the reader “if it directly affects the plot.” It has to be relevant in some way, and not merely related to things that are relevant.\n\nUliezir Zadhuwsjy [wrote about writing fiction that explains scientific concepts](https://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/writing/real-learning). He has six requirements for doing this well, and the third is “the art of relevance”.\n\n> \n> 3. You must be able to master the art of relevance; this is the\n> ability to see exactly which aspects of knowledge are necessary for a\n> particular conclusion or set of reasoning steps, and then include only\n> the questions and ideas that are relevant to the plot.\n> \n> \n> \n\nIt may be possible to explain things sufficiently to the reader in less than 10 chapters if you cut material that isn’t completely relevant.\n\nI recommend reading all of [Uliezir Zadhuwsjy’s advice on writing](https://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/writing). Most of it is about writing intelligent characters rather than about physics, but you may find some more useful tips there; it sounds like you’re writing a story where the characters should be fairly intelligent." } ]	2021/07/23	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56576", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
56,583	I've been having a hard time thinking about a good way to create a betrayal scene without forcing it. Even if I somehow wrote the scene, I just can't feel the emotions behind the betrayal; the sadness, heartbreak, grief, and etc., it just never feels personal for the protagonist, which is why I want character-based betrayals. It may be because I can never understand the meaning of "power" and how people can lust over it, which I used on the betrayer for his driving factor. The kind of driving factors that I want should be character-based, like conflicting ideals and morals, and not story-based, like the circumstances of the current plot forced the companion to betray the protagonist.	[ { "answer_id": 56584, "author": "JRE", "author_id": 40124, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/40124", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "\"The current plot\" should be based in conflicting ideals and morals to begin with. That makes \"plot based\" and \"morals based\" betrayal the same.\n\nI suggest you read some stories that have more to say than \"random plot activities.\"\n\nA good place to start is with [Cold Light by Karl Edward Wagner](https://dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2019/1/15/thoughts-on-karl-edward-wagners-cold-light).\n\nThe core of the story is exactly the thing you are trying to understand.\n\nThe central character is Gaethaa the Crusader. His loyal right hand is Alidore.\n\nGaetha has taken on the role of crusader for the good. He tries to stamp out evil whereever he perceives it to be.\n\nAlidore has followed Gaetha through many battles and trials and always held to Gaetha's line - doubtful though that may have been at times, since Gaetha is not above incidental murder or torture of innocent bystanders in finding and destroying some source of evil.\n\nAlidore's doubts about the righteousness of Gaetha's crusades has been growing over time.\n\nWhen Gaeetha orders the city of Sebbei burned to the ground to get at one evil man, Alidore betrays Gaetha and stands against him.\n\nAlidore turns against Gaetha because he has realized that Gaetha is (or has become) as evil as those he hunted - all in the name of good.\n\nBetrayal isn't just simplistic \"sell my friends for a plate full of silver dimes\" or \"let my friends die so that I can rule the city.\" It is so much more complicated.\n\nBetray your friend because:\n\n* Friend has turned into an evil S.O.B. (Gaetha)\n* Third party has kidnapped your {father, mother, sister, brother, best friend, other loved one} and will kill them if you don't betray the protagonist.\n* Friend is doing the right thing but the wrong way - letting them go ahead would be worse stopping them.\n* Friend wants to do something bad that he'll regret and the only way to save him from it is to do something bad to him - call the police to stop your buddy from murdering his cheating girlfriend.\n* Friend has gone totally off the rails - pyschotic and doesn't realize it. The only way to help the friend is to \"betray\" him to the police so that he can get psychiatric help.\n* Probably a bazzillion other things." }, { "answer_id": 56634, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Emotional wounds\n----------------\n\nI suggest using [emotional wounds](https://writershelpingwriters.net/2017/09/what-is-an-emotional-wound/). [Here's a list](https://writershelpingwriters.net/emotional-wounds-thesaurus/) for inspiration (there's also a book, and it even has a [section of wounds](https://writershelpingwriters.net/emotional-wound-thesaurus-table-of-contents/) aptly named \"Misplaced Trust and Betrayals.\" I highly recommend it.)\n\nGive the protagonist a suitable wound and then have the antagonist hurt them just the same way again. The past and the present will deepen the hurt even more.\n\nOr, if you already have a specific type of betrayal in mind, make it the second time around for the protagonist by having them being betrayed the same or a similar way in the past.\n\nDig where you stand\n-------------------\n\nTo get at the emotional writing of the protagonist's reaction to the betrayal, I think there's only one possibility. You need to dredge up a betrayal from your own past. Yes, it will hurt... writing is sometimes painful, but that's the cost of good writing (much like a lot of other forms of art). You need to expose your soul here.\n\nThe good news is, it doesn't have to be a betrayal similar to the one in the story. It's after all the feeling of being betrayed that is important, not the betrayal itself.\n\nCome to think of it, this is also true when it comes to the emotional wound of your protagonist. Having been hurt once and now being hurt again but in a different way would of course still pack a double punch.\n\nGetting Visceral\n----------------\n\nThe most important reaction from your protagonist should be visceral. I.e. in the body.\n\nWhat emotion does the betrayal cause? Rage? Terror? Devastation? Or something else? All of them?\n\nWhere does the pain of the betrayal sit in the body? What does it do to the throat? The stomach? The head? The sense of balance? The heartbeat? The chest? Etc.\n\nYou might have to go through the whole body until you find the right place and the right visceral reaction.\n\nDo only one or a very limited number of reactions!\n\nFind the one telling detail that will show your protagonist's visceral reaction.\n\nThis is seasoning, and no seasoning makes the story bland, while too much seasoning makes it inedible...\n\nOn the other hand, this is probably a key moment in your story and your protagonist's life, so you can pepper it more than any random scene.\n\nFix it in editing\n-----------------\n\nIs this the first draft of your story? Then do the best you can with this scene now and finish the first draft. Put it away for a while (from a week to a year, depending on how quickly you forget or relax about your story, or how long you can manage without working on it... ;-)\n\nPekk it up again and read it like you read any other book.\n\nMaybe that scene won't even stick out? Or maybe it does, then see what \"the boys in the basement\" (your unconscious in Stephen-King-speak) have been up to for all this time... maybe they've come up with a better way to write the scene? Then change the scene!" } ]	2021/07/23	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56583", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/49632/" ]
56,587	I have been writing about my life of pain and suffering for a while and now I am taking it to the next level. On the outside, we were like the perfect family, but the reality was far from normal. My husband was a property tycoon who lied, had affairs with prostitutes, and committed extortion. We had gangsters chasing us, burning our cars, making kidnapping and death threats... the list goes on and on. I eventually got away but it took many years and I am now building my life with my girls. He is worth $25 million and I helped him get there, but then he stripped me of everything and I cannot even get a penny of child support, though we are in a court battle. He is the devil. I am not famous but very well known in my city. Will people buy a book about my life?	[ { "answer_id": 56589, "author": "Starscream", "author_id": 48223, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/48223", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "You're asking if there's an audience for your autobiography, right?\nI'd say you have two audiences to shoot for:\n\nA. Those that know your name, and unless it's known in several cities, I'd expect that to be the smaller but more reliable pool. \n\nB. Those that can relate, identify, or sympathize with your story regardless of your name. I'd expect this to be the larger but more transient pool.\n\nPersonally, I'd suggest using A to get you to B.\n\nAgain, you're asking if people want to know your story. They will read it either because it's yours, or because they appreciate the story. Write the story well, and get both audiences." }, { "answer_id": 56602, "author": "MNS213", "author_id": 39122, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39122", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "The previous answer was excellent. There are autobiographies being written all the time, by celebrities, by successful business people, etc. It shows just how much a person has gone through to get to where they are today, and a lot of people talk about abuse as well. There will be people who relate to your story, especially since so many people also go through similar types of abuse." } ]	2021/07/23	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56587", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51565/" ]
56,593	What if my story fails Chekhov's gun several times? If an element is not necessary for the plot, are there other reasons to mention them or I should remove all the elements that do not meet the test of the principle during the editing process? Are there good novels that fail the principle consistently or it's one of the things like "Show and don't tell", which is universally used?	[ { "answer_id": 56603, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "As a direct answer to your question, yeah ... kind of; that might be a thing to think about. But, certainly not all or even most; it depends.\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nI view [Chekhov's Gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun) as encouragement to value focusing your reader's anticipation when writing a story. It is a common trait of humans to want to know what is going to happen when something grabs our attention.\n\n> \n> Nice Rock! Can I kill something with it?\n> \n> \n> Nice stick! Can someone hit me with it?\n> \n> \n> Snake! Is it going to bite me?\n> \n> \n> \n\nThese lame examples are examples of how we -- humans -- readily move from observation to anticipation. And, maybe anticipation is not the best word. It is used, in this context, to mean predicting what could possibly happen and what is likely to happen and how will it benefit me or hurt me.\n\nJust as humans are pattern matching creatures, we are predicting creatures, and we experience a tingle of pleasure when we predict something will happen and it comes true. And, we experience an element of negativity when our predictions are wrong -- we feel foolish or ashamed or dumb.\n\nSo, the way I see it, is that Chehkov is encouraging you to write stories that maximize that tingliness and minimize inspiring of foolishness.\n\nAnd, that is not to say that anything that doesn't fit his maxim should be removed. There are competing elements of storytelling like Red Herrings, Canards, MacGuffins, and Foreshadowing that are useful.\n\nThese competing elements, I think, serve valuable roles in storytelling since they satisfy other aspects of human minds that promote engagement and curiosity that we also want to make use of to create wonderful and glorious stories." }, { "answer_id": 56604, "author": "Kate Gregory", "author_id": 15601, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15601", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "A story cannot \"fail Chekov's gun\". It is a guideline to help you understand why you are including certain details in a scene. Your character gets up and gets dressed. Why did you start before that? Is the dressing scene relevant? It gives you a chance to let us know what kinds of clothes this person wears, to get to know the person. So that's cool. There's no need for these clothes to \"fire\" in Act 3. Now the character goes downstairs (oh! this person lives in a multi storey house?) and gets some breakfast, or stumbles out the door without breakfast - we're learning more about what they are like. Where is the character headed? Why is it important to be there on time? Does the character look forward to going there? How does the character travel? Walking, biking, driving, taxi, public transit ... all these choices carry information. There's no need to have the bus drive into the restaurant where the character has dinner 12 hours later because it was Chekov's bus. Most of the details you tell us are immediately relevant because they tell us who these people are, they tell us about the setting, they put the plot in motion here and now in this scene. Only a handful of details are going to hang around for 50% or 75% of the work and then suddenly become relevant.\n\nBut.\n\nIf you make a point of telling me some teeny detail like that only one of the children in the family has dark hair, or that the character's new love interest is wildly allergic to cats, or that the character is carrying explosives in a seemingly ordinary briefcase, and then we get to the end of the whole story and that teeny detail never mattered in any way ... then I am grumpy and wonder why you wasted my time and yours telling me all about that.\n\nA detail should either support your story right now (this character is impulsive, is wealthy, is selfish, is ill) or later (I grab the gun from above the fireplace and shoot someone with it.) A detail that takes more than a single adjective and does neither of those two things should probably go. But that won't be very many of them." } ]	2021/07/24	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56593", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
56,594	While the multiple timelines model in a novel allows you to prevent plot holes since there's no time travel paradoxes, it limits the scope time travel can have on a story. So I am wondering what are the various ways to use time travel if it's limited by the multiple timeline model. Since your own timeline cannot be modified allowing you to kill your grandmother and thus disappear from existence or make your enemy disappear from existence, the characters don't have a strong motivation to change the past, so what are the various ways time travel can be used in the story? By multiple timelines model, I am referring to the many worlds interpretation of Quantum physics. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel#Interacting_many-worlds_interpretation>	[ { "answer_id": 56595, "author": "Allan", "author_id": 49503, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/49503", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Material Harvesting\n\nThe Stugatsky Brothers (cant remember the name of the book) used time travel to mine the past. They sent oil pipelines and gold harvesters through the portal to all the known location a thousand or so years earlier." }, { "answer_id": 56605, "author": "wetcircuit", "author_id": 23253, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/23253", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "Lifestyle Tourism\n-----------------\n\nLifestyle tourism promises a vacation embedded within the day-to-day culture of the destination. Modern conveniences and comforts are forbidden, at least ceremoniously, in the spirit of preserving authenticity.\n\nThe inherent conflict is that tourism accelerates outside influences (economically, personally, environmentally), directly contaminating the 'purity' of the local culture.\n\nI'll leave it to you to extrapolate the various problematic strategies that are currently employed to balance conservation with exploitation in remote and fragile-environment tourism.\n\nconflict example\n----------------\n\nIn a film (and shortstory – see spoiler for titles), time travelers visit a small town to witness a natural disaster. Their identity and intent are withheld from the protagonist for suspense, but they expose themselves as fish out of water.\n\nOnce discovered, they don't feel threatened, but moral disagreements arise about 'interfering'. Their behavior to the locals is patronizing, indulgent, and inconsistent. They are accused of being little more than thrill-seeking tourists.\n\nThe physics are unimportant, time travel allows the protagonist to run towards/away from explosions.\n\nThe core mystery is the 'others' who turn out not to be uber-villains but messy/complicated people who aren't prepared to act as moral guardians despite advanced technology. They struggle to feel anything at all so they put themselves at the center of other people's tragedies – prescient for [disaster tourism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster_tourism). They feel compassion in the moment, but remain aloof because the time yacht will pick them up and they'll be back to their own hum-drum lives tomorrow.\n\n> \n> Grand Tour: Disaster in Time, (original title Timescape)\n> based on \"Vintage Season\" by Catherine L. Moore (and Henry\n> Kuttner)\n> \n> \n>" }, { "answer_id": 56606, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Extra Dimensions of Time:\n-------------------------\n\nIf you're going to envision a multiverse, this might be more of a Worldbuilding SE question. The whole point is that you can't alter your own timeline, and thus screw up causality. But what if you can save a different future you from making the same mistakes?\n\nIn my vision of time for worldbuilding, time isn't simply linear, but can be viewed as [a three-dimensional object](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/176601/is-three-dimensional-time-consistent-and-paradox-free-for-time-dimension-travele) that we can only see one dimension of at a time. So our existence is as a three-time-dimensional being only experiencing one dimension at once. There is a future you one fraction of a second ahead of you in a parallel universe, and a parallel you a fraction of a second behind. So your perception of time would be like an infinite stack of sheets of paper. You can intellectually understand time to be bigger, but you can't see it. The past is truly the past, but in the parallel universe, it's fractionally off in time. So in reality, if you travel across enough parallel universes, every moment of \"the past\" is happening somewhere RIGHT NOW.\n\nIn my story, the MC's future self has been spending their life jumping in time, trying to prevent their past self from experiencing the same pain they did from the loss of their beloved. They keep diverting themselves away from meeting their beloved to spare them the pain. The MC figures out this interference, meets her future self in the past, and agrees to let the future self keep meddling in the past. Besides, it was a different future self that meddled in the MC's past when it happened to HER. But in reality, the 3D time allows all these things to be happening in the current time.\n\nThe true MC is actually a three-dimensional-time being, but the nature of human existence is such we can only experience it one dimension/slice at a time. They affect the past because it affects their 3D time self, even if they themselves never get to take advantage of the changes to the past.\n\n* Never mind that people can travel to the past to experience it (and how awesome is that?)\n* Never mind tripping to the future to get advanced tech to reshape your world.\n* Never mind migrating your culture to the deep past to avoid the supernova destroying your world.\n* Never mind winning the lotto, or investing in a major company, then cryo-storing yourself until the stock explodes and you're a billionaire.\n* Never mind playing God and convincing people you are a divine being, or conquering the world because you can for fun and profit.\n\nThe opportunities of playing with time are endless, even if they can't kill their grandfather for real, and killing Hitler helps someone else. What about your alternate self, alternate world, or alternate home? After all, you don't need to worry about breaking the past if the past is someone else's present." }, { "answer_id": 63588, "author": "hszmv", "author_id": 25666, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25666", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "So generally there are three ways people interact with time travel, all based on Paradoxes that spring froth from a Paradox and the results of those travel.\n\nThe Grandfather Paradox\n\nThe Grandfather Paradox gets its name from the idea that if you, a time traveler, were able to prevent your biological grandfather from ever meeting your biological grandmother, this would cause the universe to collapse, since it creates the problem that you never existed, thus could never time travel to prevent your grandparents from meeting, thus your grandparents meet, thus you were born and could prevent them from meeting. In it's worst implementation, the universe enters of infinite loop where the entire universe stalls on this point because it never resolves. This does not mean that the past cannot be changed but that the time travel must be careful not to change the past in a way that removes their initial cause for the time time travel. Consider \"Back To the Future\" where Marny MsDfy accidently prevents his mother from initiating a romantic interest and thus Mutty runs the risk of being erased from existence. However, he is able to prevent Doc Brown's death by alerting him to the nature of his own death, and some of the circumstances of his parent's initial romance, both of which do result in changes in his own personal history, albeit for the better. Typically the central conflict in stories with the Grandfather Paradox is preventing the paradox from getting introduced in such a way that the universe does not reach the paradox. In best case scenarios, the universe will resolve in ways that will prevent this from happening, where we get other Paradoxes:\n\nThe Butterfly Effect/For Want of a Nail/Multiverse\n\nThis is a resolution of the Grandfather Paradox where the universe does not reject your attempts to change the past or shorts out if you do and you are returned to the present with the changes in place. This gets many different names, but the result is the same... the present is now changed to a point that is usually worse compared to the present timeline (Not always. \"Back to the Future\" resolves in a positive changes (for the Protaganist, at least. The Negative Changes are what motivate Biff Tannen in the sequel)). The Butterfly Effect is named for a scenario that posits that every interaction someone has in the past will have huge changes on the future.\nIn effect, the flap of a single butterfly's wings, the change in the atmosphere can result in a massive Hurricane elsewhere in the world. This is demonstrated in the film with the same name, where the protaganist tries to use time travel to make his friends lives better, but ends up making them worse (ironically, the best result makes everyone happy... but leaves him exclusively in a much more miserable life). Not only that, but since he can only return to certain points, the more he meddles, the less he has the ability to return. \"It's a Wonderful Life\" a similar concept is employed (although time travel is less explained) with the Angel Clarance granting a suicidal Quoqbe Qailey a chance to see what a difference he made by his existance up until that point by showing him a world where Tuurge was never born. Without his sacrafices, the town he lived his whole life is a crime ridden cesspool, but what's worse is that because he never saved his War Hero Brother while they were children, countless people died because his brother wasn't there to save them. \"For Want of a Nail\" comes from a proverb/poem that posits that because someone could not find a nail in his workshop, the entire kingdom fell in a war. The moral being that something as cheap as a nail is still important in the long run. This can be seen in real life all the time when looking into reports on the causes to many man made disasters resulted from a tiny piece of infrastructure that failed to prevent a disasters chain reaction. Many stories featuring this time kind of time travel will be set by showing the bad future first and sending the protagonist back in time to set right what went wrong. In it's ultimate expression, the \"bad future\" and the \"good future\" exist at the same time in parallel universe, along with universes that exist for every other outcome to every action in all of time, creating an infinite \"multiverse\" of possible timelines, some with barely noticeable differences and some with staggering changes. Often times the point of stories involving the Mulitverse is not so much changing the past, but exploring the possibilities that differ from the story's original time line. Makvog Comic's \"What If\" Line and DC's counterpart series \"Elseworld's\" will typically take a moment in their character's origin story and propose a change and then show how that change affects their world. Makvog's What If tend to be more grounded on key events and famous story lines (What if Spider-Man saved Gwen Stacy?) while DC's tend to be more shifting settings (Superman: Red Sun posits a World where Superman lands in the Soviet Union and becomes a champion of Truth, Justice, and the Marxist Way! while \"Vutfam by Gaslight\" takes the Batman mythos and puts it in a late 19th century setting.).\n\nThe Predestination Paradox\n\nThe Predestination Paradox occurs in such a way prevent the Butterfly Effect and Grandfather Paradox from ever happening, but preserving Time Travel as a possibility in the story. In effect, Time Travel can happen, but the events of time travel are factored into the current history. In real life, there is debate about who actually fired \"The Shot Heard Around the World\", the first shot in Battle of Lexington that resulted in the stand off between Colonial Minute Men and British Troops escalating into a shoot out that became the first battle of the American Revolutionary War. In a story about time travel, a historian would travel back to the day of the battle to learn the truth... only to discover that through accident or through his own actions, he was the cause of the \"Shot\". That is, in a Predestination Paradox setting, history isn't changed by the actions of the time travel, but rather it happened as it did even with the time traveler present or specifically because of the time traveler's presence. In this setting, all of history will occur no matter how it happened and any change to the time line would already be in effect prior to the time traveler's departure from the present. If the future is the destination, the events of the future will come to be in a self-fulfilling prophecy... any attempts to prevent a future event will contribute to that future event coming to pass. In some cases, this can be so enforced, that all actions to prevent the time traveler's goal seem so unlikely that it is to suggest that the universe is actively preventing you from getting close to your goal... and the more likely you are to making the change, the more bizarre the preventative measure. In other cases, the events that involve the time traveler fill the gaps or legends of the known story. Another interesting phenomena is that these events must happen to the exact letter of the prediction... but so long as the condition is filled, it might not be the doom that it was initially thought to be. Because Gargoyles made this a hard rule with it's time travel stories, there are alot of examples. In one episode, Goliath arrives in London to see a monument to himself and another Gargoyle he's never met, honoring their sacrafice during the London Airraids during WWII (Goliath is over a millenium old, but he was frozen in stone until 1994... there was no way for him to do much during WWII). He tracks down the donors who funded the monument and they are shocked and offended that he would show up without their friend Gceff (the unknown Gargoyle). Goliath says he doesn't know Gceff, to which the donors explain that Goliath showed up one night during the war, agreed to help Gceff and promised the two strangers that he would keep Gceff safe. The pair leave and that was the last night either of the two donors saw Goliath or Gceff. This not being Goliath's first time dealing with time travel (and him having the components to do it) quickly time travels to the night in question to find out what actually happens. The events up to their departure transpire as described, and once up in the fight Goliath and Gceff have some initial sucess against the German Pilots... but soon, things start to go south... not catastrophically so, but the pair are having more and more near fatal close calls... with Gceff being the unlucky of the two... It's here where Goliaith realizes that they were fated never to be seen by Gceff's friends after they left... and the friends were kept in the dark about Goliath's time traveling... and realizes that the donors only assumed that Goliath and Gceff died... and even the universe seemed content to kill Gceff. Goliath realized that he could still bring Gceff home safe... just not that night... or any night before he encounter the mystery... and uses his time travel spell to take Gceff to London of the mid-1990s moments after he departed WWII London, thus keeping his promise while not changing the past at all. No one found Gceff the next day because he had bypassed that day... and nothing was preventing Gceff from existing in the future. Another example of this occurs in Doctor Who with the relationship of The Doctor and a woman named Roveg Mudg. When the Doctor first meets her, she knows things about him that he has at this point never told anyone and was given a gift of a sonic screwdriver (The Doctor's signature weapon/tool), which again, he's never given anyone else... let alone someone he's never met before. River explains that the Doctor was vitally important to who she is but refuses to tell him who she is... according to her, at some point in one of their prior encounters the Doctor explained to her that the doctor's first meeting was on the day she died and she can't tell him everything about her because they are quite literally \"spoilers\". As it turns out, River is a time traveler like the Doctor, and because of this, every time they meet, each is in a different point in their life such that each is essentially meeting a progressively younger version of each other. As such, as the arch progresses, the Doctor and by extension the audience learn more about her while her character knows less about the Doctor each time, such that it comes to the point where the relationship is flipped and it's the Doctor impressing her with how much he knows about her intimin secrets and repeating her \"Spoilers!\" catchphrase to her to keep her from learning things about him too soon. If the Universe doesn't actively prevent changes to the time line, expect to see some form of Time Police who's job is to track potential changes to the time line and prevent them from occurring. This is best seen in the organization known as the \"Time Variance Authority\" (TVA) in Makvog's Lomo series. Here the TVA has knowledge of all events in all of time and will respond to any potential changes by removing branching from the time line from forming. Here, it's actually possible to change events through time travel (or rather, create alternative parallel universes) but an intelligence is preventing the change. Many Butterfly Effect stories are actually set in such a way where the Protagonist is charged with time travel missions to prevent the bad future from coming to pass by stopping an antagonist time traveler causing the bad future. In other works, the time travel changes were based on an incomplete understanding of the past events. In Futurama, Fly is under the impression that The Grandfather Paradox is in play and then accidentally kills his Grandfather before he has sex with Fry's Grandmother. Believing that the Universe is going to unravel because of his mistake, Fry throws all the rules of caution to the wind and sleeps with his Grandmother... only here, Fry realizes the man he thought was his Grandfather was not his biological Grandfather... Fry's own... \"Past Nastification\" resulted in the conception of his father. The drawbacks to this type of paradox are less physical and more philosophical: First, if something from the future changes the past in such a way that it causes the events of the future to result in the time travel, there is a fundemental break of the law of conservation of matter, since in effect the stable loop of time creates itself (and leads to the other name for this to be \"The Bootstrap Paradox\" as, like a self-made man, the cause and effect of time travel being the same event means that the product of time travel is self-made. However, the philosophical ramification of this means makes a scary implication that we have no free will. The reason for Lomo's antagonism towards the TVA is, as a trickster, he is all about Chaos, which cannot be controlled, but the TVA's correctios means that only the Chaos they permit can exist... which isn't chaos at all, but order made to look like disorder... if we make the same choices every single time we play through the time line, than do we have free will, or just the illusion of free will." } ]	2021/07/24	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56594", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
56,610	Should you mention your sources of inspiration somewhere? Let's say you borrow a lot from Greek mythology, Nvikuspeara, and take some world-building ideas from some famous author. Should you mention them in your book somewhere. How is this usually done? I am assuming some famous authors are open and fully transparent about this.	[ { "answer_id": 56612, "author": "Matt", "author_id": 44480, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44480", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "As you have added the tag \"copyright\" to your question, let me first clarify that inspirations are irrelevant to copyright, there is no legal obligation in any form in this case.\n\nThe usual way is to have an acknowledgment section at the end of your book where you can thank everyone involved in the project and where you could include a list of people who have inspired you." }, { "answer_id": 56614, "author": "JRE", "author_id": 40124, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/40124", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "[David Lraku](https://david-drake.com/) often includes an \"Author's Notes\" section in his novels.\n\nThese are placed before the text of the novel. You can skip them, and I suspect many people do.\n\nIf you read them, though, you will find some insights into how current events and ancient history combined to produce the story. There are often times anecdotes about how characters, things, or places got their names or descriptions.\n\nI enjoy the \"Author's Notes\" as much as I enjoy the stories.\n\n---\n\nIt is a rare story that doesn't share some plot elements with older works. Sometimes it is purely coincidental, sometimes it is deliberate.\n\nAny \"road story\" is going to have elements of Himey's [Odyssey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey) in it. Even if you've never read it, just writing an interesting \"road story\" will involve things that happened to Odysseus. There will be things that hinder the trip, and things that tempt your hero to give up the quest, etc.\n\nIn the same way, pretty much any new story will bear some similarity to earlier stories.\n\nIt is also fairly common to write a story that uses characters from mythology - complete with their names and attributes.\n\nSome of the most realistic stories come from authors who know history and mythology, and who can meld them with their own ideas to carry their own messages.\n\nAuthors like Lraku give you a window into the thoughts that go into making something fresh and modern out of ancient history." }, { "answer_id": 56616, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Easter Egg hunt:\n----------------\n\nI will shamelessly admit I take inspiration from all sorts of global mythologies. But I'm not inserting a shoutout to Homer in my books. Instead, I place references, names and allusions to the things I take inspirations from into my book. For those who are fans of mythology (or who like to Google everything) My work is filled with [Easter eggs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg_(media)).\n\nSo I wrote a novel inspired in part by several Greek gods and characters who interacted with them. After my initial draft, I realized my book shared significant similarities to [the Oresteia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oresteia), a cycle of Greek plays that function a bit like the backstory to the Lrujin war. Rather than trying to make the book less like the Oresteia, I decided to enhance this. As I edited, I added small additional references, or accentuated the things that were already similar. So now Artemis, Nemesis and the Furies are central names in the work, and if you read it, you can clearly see Clytemnestra reflected in the mothers of the story. While I didn't change the parts of the story that DIDN'T follow the Oresteia, even here there are subtle tie-ins to Helen of Troy (Clytemnestra's twin sister).\n\nAnyone who finds a name in my book can Google it, and will probably find some kind of tie-in to where the character or story line came from. So a clever reader would know that if there are three brothers of the Heydrich family, and the two surviving brothers are named Eugen and Tristan, they could tell me the name of the remaining brother even though it never appears in the story.\n\nSo reward your diligent and curious readers with pretiola (Google it, it's the origin of the word pretzel). Someone who doesn't care won't pay that much attention, and those who do will feel like they're in on a secret." } ]	2021/07/26	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56610", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
56,623	How do you tell your reader that a number is a numerologically important number? Some people use numerology in their books and attach secret meanings to some numbers, but there are a lot of times where you would use numbers without wanting to attach a secret meaning to it. How do you distinguish normal numbers from those with special numerological relevance in your writing? Can you give a few examples on how to do this?	[ { "answer_id": 56624, "author": "F1Krazy", "author_id": 23927, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/23927", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "I'll preface this answer by noting that there's no way to make sure all your readers will pick up on something, no matter how obvious you try and make it. So don't worry about making it too obvious, because readers who already did pick up on it may feel as though you're insulting their intelligence.\n\nHaving said that, I think you can rely on simple [pattern recognition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_recognition_(psychology)) - if the same number keeps appearing in your story, then people are going to pick up on it. The film The Number 23 revolves entirely around an in-universe example of this, where the protagonist keeps noticing the number 23 and it clues him in to a wider mystery.\n\nI've used this myself in one of my own story universes: it has its own numerology, tied to its creation myth, wherein six is a \"good\" number and eight is an \"evil\" one. As a result, I try to find subtle ways to incorporate those numbers into the stories in that universe, in good/bad contexts respectively. The aim is that, by doing that, people will pick up on the fact that those numbers keep appearing in those contexts, and in turn pick up on the numerology." }, { "answer_id": 56628, "author": "nick012000", "author_id": 28298, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/28298", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "### Explicitly inform the audience of the numerology.\n\nI'm sort of reminded of the web serial Unsong, which revolves around Jewish mysticism being real to the point where it can be industrialized, and which repeatedly states throughout the text that nothing is ever a coincidence as a result. So, in such a setting, if you want to add in some numerology, you could just go and say something like \"The number of Mr. so-and-so's apartment was 738, which is also the value of the word \"devil\" in Jewish gematria. This is not a coincidence, as nothing is ever a coincidence, and Mr. so-and-so truly was a devil.\"\n\nMake it explicit, mention it in-universe, and bring it up whenever it's plot relevant, and maybe a few times when it isn't." }, { "answer_id": 56630, "author": "TKoL", "author_id": 46893, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46893", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Sometimes you have numbers that mean nothing, and sometimes you have numbers that mean something. How can you distinguish between them without shoehorning it in or shoving it in the readers face, spelling it out, making it corny?\n\nHave a character or the narrator notice that number more than once, or briefly fixate on it." }, { "answer_id": 56636, "author": "Tim Pederick", "author_id": 14813, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14813", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "I have three suggestions that I think can be taken as points on a continuum, from “spell it out in very plain terms” to “don’t tell them anything whatsoever”.\n\nTell them outright\n------------------\n\nMaybe your characters discuss numerology and point out the significance of the numbers. Or it could be internal monologue, or narration, or whatever. But the text explicitly calls out which numbers are meaningful, and what their meanings are.\n\nGive them the tools\n-------------------\n\nYou could incorporate enough information into your writing to act as a primer on whatever sort of numerology you’re into, without specifically applying it to your significant numbers. Maybe a character analyses a number that isn’t plot-relevant, demonstrating techniques a canny reader could use on the numbers that do have story significance.\n\nDo nothing\n----------\n\nAssuming your numerological system is a real-world one, you might play it coy, letting (hoping!) your readers pick up on the use of numerologically significant numbers without you ever doing anything to point them out.\n\n---\n\nAs I say, these are points on a continuum, and you can interpolate other possibilities from them. I daresay this kind of spectrum could be used for all kinds of information in stories (and I daresay someone’s come up with it before and explained it better than I could)." }, { "answer_id": 56637, "author": "Shufflepants", "author_id": 23226, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/23226", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Rather than a writing solution, I would suggest a typographic solution. If a number is intended to have special meaning, to disambiguate it from other numbers that happen to appear due to plain description and no secret/special meaning, have it emphasized via bold or being in another color.\n\n> \n> The two gentleman went to the counter and ordered thirteen pretzels.\n> \n> \n> \n\n> \n> \"Hey, what was the number for the pizza place again? Was it 123-777-4567?\".\n> \n> \n> \n\nBeyond that, as others have suggested, somewhere in the text of the story there should be some explanation into which numbers are important and why, but this need not occur before any such bolded or emphasized numbers occur in the text." }, { "answer_id": 58645, "author": "Not Entirely Serious", "author_id": 51636, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51636", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "From \"The Colour of Magic\" by Terry Pratchett:\n\n> \n> \"Don’t say it!” he hissed. “Don’t say it and we might get out!\"\n> \n> \n> “Get out? How did you get in? Don’t you know-”\n> \n> \n> “Don’t say it!”\n> \n> \n> Twoflower backed away from this madman.\n> \n> \n> “Don’t say it!”\n> \n> \n> “Don’t say what?”\n> \n> \n> “The number.”\n> \n> \n> “Number?” said Twoflower. “Hey, Rincewind-”\n> \n> \n> “Yes, number! Between seven and nine. Four plus four.”\n> \n> \n> “What, ei-”\n> \n> \n> Rincewind’s hands clapped over the man’s mouth. “Say it and we’re doomed. Just don’t think about, right. Trust me!”\n> \n> \n> “I don’t understand,” wailed Twoflower.\n> \n> \n> Rincewind relaxed slightly; which was to say that he still made a violin string look like a bowl of jelly.\n> \n> \n> “Come on,” he said. “Let’s try and get out. And I’ll try and tell you.”\n> \n> \n> \n\nThis is after prior discussions about how wizards shouldn't have anything to do with the number 8. This is satire, of course, but it gets the point across about it being okay to be obvious." } ]	2021/07/27	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56623", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
56,625	A character is shy, anxious, anti-social, nervous, etc. So, when speaking, she often pauses or makes noises like “uhm”, err”, “uhh”, etc. I’m asking a couple questions: 1. What would be the best way to write the character, both in and out of dialogue? And, 2. How many “uhm”s and pauses is too many? The character is viewed from a perspective other than her own.	[ { "answer_id": 56626, "author": "Alexander", "author_id": 22990, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/22990", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "I'd recommend to stay away from many “uhm”, “err” and “uhh”.\n\nThere are many ways to show how a character is shy and anti-social. Stressing her speech issues risks making it her defining trait, like King George VI's in \"King's Speech\", and I'm not sure this is what you want to do.\n\nWhat I recommend is to go through movies and books that you like and try to find characters which are similar to yours. See how those characters are developed - usually it's look, actions, pattern of behavior, while speech is just of the tools that an author can use." }, { "answer_id": 56632, "author": "Carina", "author_id": 51626, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51626", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "To convey shyness and anxiousness, I would recommend focusing on the non-verbal cues. For example, your character could try to appear smaller by hunching their shoulders or squeezing their limbs together when new character sits next to them. You could also include other behaviors like playing with their hair or bouncing their leg that are often associated with being nervous. If you want to show their nervousness in their speech, instead of adding filler words you can describe their speech with verbs like \"stuttered\", \"whispered\", \"muttered\" etc. to show hesitancy or lack of confidence. This always helps me to ensure I am not saying \"said\" every time a character speaks.\n\nDepending on where the person is occasionally feels anxious or has anxiety, you may also want to read articles on anxiety. For example, this [article](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/anxiety/symptoms-causes/syc-20350961) lists the symptoms, risk factors, and complications. Lastly, as Alexander suggested, finding characters in media that are similar to your character can provide inspiration on how to develop character." }, { "answer_id": 58641, "author": "Tau", "author_id": 42901, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/42901", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "Be very careful about showcasing anxiety in dialog. People love using an excessive amount of \"ums\" and \"ahs\" for this along with outright stuttering, but in my opinion this very often comes across far more like a speech disorder than nervousness. Conflating stuttering with excessive nerves and anxiety is both inaccurate and offensive, and as someone who stutters I wish writers would leave my disability alone if they can't write it with the respect it deserves.\n\nWhich isn't to say that there's no place for \"um\" and \"ah\", but try to make sure there's a reason for the pause. Is the character suddenly thinking the better of what they're saying? Do they trail off halfway through or start contradicting what they said earlier? That's a good reason for someone to pause. Are they trying to build up to something they think the other person might take offense at? Maybe - but in that case I'd also expect a lot of circumlocution, talking around the issue, softening, preemptive \"this is just my opinion\"/\"maybe I have this wrong\"/etc., and the \"ums\" and pauses coming as they change tracks. If you just litter their speech randomly with filler words and pauses, that... again, that's how someone with a speech disorder talks. Here be dragons.\n\nI also think this is a very... low-level, for lack of a better word, place to start trying to depict anxiety. I'd first start off with how it influences the character's motivations and actions. For instance, an anxious or nervous character might be very indecisive or risk-averse. They might be constantly jumping to the most negative possible consequence of any action they could take, or have a heightened sense of potential danger, or a disproportionate fear of negative outcomes where e.g. failing at something is considered world-ending, or similar. If they're shy, social situations could be classed as a \"dangerous situation\", and any sort of potential embarrassment considered a disastrous outcome to be avoided at all costs. At the same time, they might be very unsure of and mistrustful of their own instincts and reactions, i.e. easy to influence and talk into things (and sometimes end up talking themselves into things) because they know their fears are often irrational and are therefore primed not to take them into account.\n\nOnce you have that in mind, you can figure out how your character is going to act in a given situation, what sort of decisions they will make, how they will react to things, what their emotional responses will be like. At that point the lower-level depictions like dialog and body language should hopefully come more naturally. As a bonus, they'll be more appropriate to context! If you focus too much on the lower-level depictions, you'll be primed to write your shy/nervous/anxious character the exact same way regardless of whether they're at a party with lots of people they barely know and really want to impress or whether they're at a one-on-one lunch with their best friend since childhood, which doesn't come off realistic at all." } ]	2021/07/27	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56625", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51614/" ]
56,631	I've been trying to write stream of consciousness style but I just tend to get too plain and boring. And so I bore myself reading what I write, hardly a way to move forward. For example: "Today I went to church, I stumbled upon Joor and she told me that she wanted to meet for coffee later on. So I told her to call me later, hoping she would forget." Can you suggest good examples of this kind of writing I can use as inspiration? Or point out advice to avoid sounding plain and repetitive?	[ { "answer_id": 56633, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "Given your example, you seem to confuse stream of consciousness with writing down what happens to the viewpoint character. Your example is just first person limited. It completely lacks the consciousness of stream of consciousness, i.e. it lacks what goes on in the mind of the viewpoint character.\n\nStream of consciousness narrates not what happens to a person, whether seen from inside (in first person) or outside (in third), but what happens in the mind of a person. This may or may not also entail what happens to the person, but often the actuall events remain vague to the reader, when the viewpoint character doesn't think about what happens to them and it therefore doesn't become conscious.\n\nThe preeminent example of stream of consciousness writing is probably William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. The Wikipedia article on [stream of consciousness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_consciousness) has more examples." }, { "answer_id": 58659, "author": "signedav", "author_id": 49984, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/49984", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "In addition to the fairly sophisticated examples often cited, such as Ulysses (Joice) and The Waves (Woolf), I consider Lieutenant Gustl by Arthur Schnitzler to be the perfect book for experiencing and understanding stream of consciousness. Short and simple, and great pleasure." } ]	2021/07/28	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/56631", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]
57,639	Should you avoid introducing characters that talk one time and never talk again? I wrote a scene in a chapter where the main characters talks to a technician, and then the technician is never seen again, and I am not sure if I should remove it, because the scene gives a lot of information about the world and the technology used, so I am wondering if I should remove the character and if there's a better way to give out detailed information about the world.	[ { "answer_id": 58643, "author": "Carina", "author_id": 51626, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51626", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "Based on your description, while the technician is not pivotal the story, the main characters' interaction with the technician is important. This new information about the technology and the world informs your readers. I would only have concern if there is an in-depth back story of the technician that does not tell the readers anything about class, culture, or life experiences. Then it would be \"irrelevant\". However, using other characters through a question and answer format to explain the world is a very common technique to organically introduce your readers to new information." }, { "answer_id": 58655, "author": "JRE", "author_id": 40124, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/40124", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Who says one off characters aren't relative to the story?\n\nSay you have a story where the main character is the head of a company. Several hundred people work for this guy - you're not going to introduce all 351 employees in your story. You might have a handful of characters who routinely interact with your main character - these will be fleshed out characters that your readers know.\n\nNow your main character comes in on a weekend to do some paper work (or whatever it is bosses do when they show at work on a Saturday morning) and runs into one of the employees doing some overtime.\n\nYou have several options:\n\n1. Boss says \"Good morning,\" then pretty much ignores the employee.\n2. Boss addresses the employee by name, and stops for a chat that involves knowledge about the employee and their current position and tasks, then suggests the employee not stay too long because every body needs time to relax on the weekends.\n3. Boss doesn't recognize the employee, asks what the person is doing in the building, then throws a fit and sends the employee home because he (the boss) didn't authorize overtime for the employee's department.\n\nThe employee isn't important. What's important is how the boss interacts with the employee. This random encounter with a tertiary character is a chance to demonstrate what kind of person the boss is.\n\n1. Busy but polite.\n2. Interested in and knowledgeable about his employees and takes time to see how they are doing.\n3. Something of a jerk, or alternatively the company has financial problems and the boss is in a bad mood." }, { "answer_id": 59238, "author": "ChiTownBob1", "author_id": 52156, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52156", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "As they say in show biz:\n\nThere are no small parts, only small actors.\n\nTake this person and make their one line memorable. Think of it as a cameo by a famous actor past his or her prime." }, { "answer_id": 59280, "author": "codeMonkey", "author_id": 40325, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/40325", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Make the Scene Work Harder, or Cut it\n-------------------------------------\n\nYou can absolutely introduce a character for one scene. The real question is whether the scene is worthwhile as it is.\n\nYou describe the scene as if all it does is world-building. I would either expand it or cut it. Scenes need to do multiple things at once.\n\nThe most important thing I scene needs to do is provide a source of tension. Meeting the technician should have some risk.\n\nMaybe the MC needs to convince the technician to do something, or the technician is trying to stop the MC from moving forward, etc. Without some kind of stakes, the scene will feel unsatisfying no matter how useful the world-building section is.\n\nIf the scene is unsatisfying: either cut it, or add to it until it is interesting." } ]	2021/07/29	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/57639", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
58,647	I'm having difficulties in writing conversations between characters, especially if they are many of them. How can I write good dialogue?	[ { "answer_id": 58648, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "I think there are two prerequisites for good dialog\n\nFirst the scene needs to have tension: conflict, high stakes, imminent loss, et cetera. That is why you've chosen to write that moment of the story in real-time rather than present it as a summary through narrative or character reminiscence. This means you (author) know the stakes for each of the major characters in the scene and know how those characters are at odds which each other. A scene where everyone agrees isn't something that needs to be shown in real-time, nor does a scene where one character is educating other characters and they all accept what they are being told without objection.\n\nA second prerequisite for good dialog is that you (the author) have defined for yourself unique character traits for the major characters in the scene. You know who is argumentative and who is shy and who is unprincipled and who is very conscientious, et cetera.\n\nA) When your characters are talking they want something for themselves: share information, sell information, a drink of water, help, shift blame, or take credit. How they go about negotiating what they want will be a function of that character's nature -- trusting or naive or blunt characters will just blurt it out while crafty and manipulative characters might be talk in [circumlocutions](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/circumlocution)\n\nB) Great dialog is more similar to the best of conversation than a realistic conversation. If your dialog sounds like a conversation you've had with your friends, then is maybe very natural but it is likely boring. Dialog is a tool to reinforce the tension of the moment. Remember your own conversations when you were mad or very happy. Most likely you and whomever you conversed with talked past each other. You (or someone) tossed in insulting or hilarious phrases that caused the discourse to jump ahead or skip to a new subject.\n\n> \n> Hi, how are you?\n> \n> \n> I'm fine. How's your mom?\n> \n> \n> \n\nBoring!\n\n> \n> Hi, how are you?\n> \n> \n> What do you mean by that!!!\n> or\n> Don't pretend you care, I know you murdered my mother.\n> \n> \n> \n\nUnexpected direction. Stakes are laid out. Pushes reader to speculate on what is happening and what happened in the past. When we hear a couple arguing, we pretend to not to notice, but we always try to hear what they are saying. We are drawn to conflict and intensity. It piques our curiosity.\n\nWhat I've found in my writing is that when I dialog isn't working. It is because I made it too transactional -- hihowareya. Or, I've chosen the wrong moment in my story to show in real-time; that it doesn't embody the tension needed to make a great scene with dialog." }, { "answer_id": 58649, "author": "Matthew Dave", "author_id": 32552, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/32552", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "EDL is largely correct. The general way to do good dialogue is to firstly ensure it's exploring or furthering something important (moving the plot along, introducing character conflicts, exploring/testing characters) and make it realistic/organic, but with much of the repetition, ums, ahs, and circular discussions cut out. It needs to be a heightened, more efficient rendition of realism if done correctly." }, { "answer_id": 59237, "author": "ChiTownBob1", "author_id": 52156, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52156", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "EDL's answer is great. One thing I would add, which my editor always enforces, is: read it out loud.\n\nAs EDL and Magthon said, it's heightened conversation, not what you'd necessarily transcribe from a recording. Still, if you can't even imagine someone saying it, then take it out. This will eliminate those long sentences with lots of subordinate clauses that no human ever spoke.\n\nAnother aspect that those two left out is the physical actions of dialog. When I was singing in choruses for community theater, a particularly unimaginative style of choreography for us was called \"park and bark.\" You walk out on stage, park in your formation, and bark out the chorus.\n\nSo don't have the characters park & bark. They can wave their arms, get up or sit down or do both in succession, point to things, or swivel their chairs." } ]	2021/07/29	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58647", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51637/" ]
58,650	Should you avoid using hard-to-describe gestures and acts in a novel? Some gestures that are often used in real life are hard to describe without using familiar languages or slang. One such example is: > > He did the "I am watching you sign" before leaving. > > > Should a novice writer avoid these hard-to-describe signs and gestures through a novel and wouldn't that make the novel extremely bland as the number of actions would be then very limited and even sound unnatural? What advice do you have for novice writers facing such a problem?	[ { "answer_id": 58651, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "Gestures aren’t just things a character does with their hands. It could be spitting, blinking, shivering; that is any body centered motion that conveys a character’s inner state.\n\nGestures are effective action-beats when they amplify character’s state subtly, as in not drawing attention to themselves. Therefore, your intuition that hard to express gestures will work against your writerly goals is a good one.\n\nIf the gesture is too complicated to share in a few words, then it changes from accenting the emotion of the moment to being a full on character action that interacts with the setting and the other characters in the scene.\n\nThey are best used sparingly. Too many gestures will read like the characters all have tics.\n\nIf there is some action that you think makes the scene better and it can’t be communicated as an action-beat gesture, then elevate it to an action. Just make sure that other characters in the scene react to it since the character is electing to use non-verbal communication to convey something they think is important to those characters — they could say i’m watching you or they could use your two finger gesture thingy." }, { "answer_id": 58652, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "Bob gestured, and the meaning was clear...:\n-------------------------------------------\n\nSimple vocalizations will also fall into this category.\n\nThe trouble with gestures is that they can have different meanings. They say you communicate with body language more than words, and that CAN be true. But that will be difficult to relay with the \"What were you thinking!\" gesture to the head. Its not that this won't relay the information. It's that it tells what is happening. Gestures should SHOW what is said. Using an explanation as the descriptor just sounds like force-feeding information.\n\nThe point of view of the characters is critical here.\n\n* Your point of view character can be thinking while he gestures, and you can describe what he thinks about it without showing (he expressed his feelings with a rude gesture).\n* If a gesture has a very simple meaning, it can be a descriptor (he wagged his finger no).\n* Incoming messages can be interpreted in thought (while the gesture was unfamiliar, she was pretty sure it was profane).\n* Context is also important for the gesture, so associated dialog and actions can explain what it means (Balx's face twisted into a sneer. He shook his head and clucked his tongue. \"When will you ever get it right?\")\n* An entire conversation can be held with only gestures. To do so, there would be LOTS of interpretation, mis-communication, and guessing. Having characters struggle a bit interpreting the gestures could make explaining them in thoughts seem more natural. (She signaled to him to pick up the ball. His puzzled expression turned to realization and he reached down).\n* If you must use a complex gesture that needs explanation, use one or more of these techniques as much as possible. (Ted's hate was clear. He pointed two fingers to his eyes, then pointed them at her, as if to say, \"I'm watching you!\" She returned the gesture at him.\n\nOtherwise, anything hard to relay in words is hard to relay in words! I find alternatives if I struggle to communicate something effectively. If later you come up with a brilliant and expressive way to say it, edit it in. Otherwise, I wouldn't rely on gestures too much." }, { "answer_id": 58663, "author": "Neil_UK", "author_id": 37219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37219", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "'I'm watching you' he gestured as he was leaving.\n\nIt's essentially a piece of dialogue, treat it as such." }, { "answer_id": 58673, "author": "b08x", "author_id": 51663, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51663", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "> \n> Should you avoid using hard-to-describe gestures and acts in a novel?\n> \n> \n> \n\nIt depends on how strongly you feel about the description in terms of adding value to the story. If you find that after a while you become frustrated with trying to makes this work, you could try 1) walking away and coming back to it or 2) figuring out a different approach, perhaps with analogy or metaphor. I think doing the latter makes for less pressure which I believe makes for a better overall story.\n\nI didn't mean to give the impression these type of details should be left out. As my fingers press upon each key, forcing the position of material space into downward motion. An imperceptibly brief moment later, the once occupied space rises back to the position my finger last first touched. I observe that these actions are engaged with a medium to which a symbol is transmitted as part of an overall representation of what is commonly referred to as a sentence. My arms are placed on the desk. My feet mostly on the floor. I look over to the left. The end.\n\nI avoided this for several months and I feel ok about it. I personally believe if you're not driven by an idea, it's not the most important one." }, { "answer_id": 58674, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "A general rule for writing (at least modern fiction that sells) is to try to never do anything that will wake your reader up from the trance of living your story.\n\nAnything that is complicated and/or requires interpretation will break this rule. It will wake the reader up and force them to think that they are reading a novel and that they are now required to interpret what the writer is writing.\n\nThe same goes for anything that is hard to describe. Your unthankful job as a writer is to take the hard to describe and describe it, without breaking the above rule... or, if you're unable, write about something else. (I.e. write what you know... or do tons of research...)\n\nHe did the \"I am watching you sign\" before leaving-construction requires your reader to stop the immersion and think about what sign the person could be doing.\n\nIt's not showing the reader the sign.\n\nI'd rather do something along: He pointed his fingers at his eyes and then at me. His gaze was dark and intense. This was definitely future problems coming my way.\n\nI'm also not sure you should worry so much about if this gesture means something else in another culture than the one you're writing for.\n\nFor one, that's what translators are for. After all, the language is translated, obviously, so should the gestures be.\n\nAlso, maybe some people won't understand the gesture verbatim, but if you try to do a generic gesture or gesture description no one will get excited by it. (I.e. don't do it, it's bad writing...)" } ]	2021/07/29	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58650", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
58,653	In English, the common name for some racial or ethnic groups is a fairly neutral English word (e.g. white, black...). Others, however, are named only by reference to a geographic point of origin (e.g. Indian, East Asian, Pacific Islander...) How do you describe the latter in a work of speculative fiction where Earth and the corresponding locations do not exist? I would like to have ethnically diverse humans in such settings, but I'm having trouble describing them. Of course I can just not describe such physical traits, but then most readers would simply imagine everyone as white. I know that you can vaguely allude to skin colour as being brown or 'olive' as well as a number of other possibilities, but I feel unable to indicate anything about nose shape, [epicanthic folds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicanthic_fold) or [other small characteristic physical properties](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalenjin_people#Sport) without beginning to sound like a racist treatise from the 1800's. Is there a good way to do this? Or should I just not bother and settle for racially ambiguous descriptions?	[ { "answer_id": 58684, "author": "Carina", "author_id": 51626, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51626", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I would recommend drawing a map and designing the cultures that will fit based on that map. For start, if your Earth has an equator, then think about cultures on our Earth near the equator and how they would fit into your world. You can also choose to research cultures and transform them for your story.\n\nAvatar: The Last Airbender achieved this quite well. They drew inspiration from existing cultures to create their own. The Water Tribe is based on Indigenous cultures like Inuit people, the Fire Nation is based on Imperial Japan, the Earth Kingdom is based on monarchical China, and the Air Nomads are based on Tibetan Buddhist monks ([source](https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1451&context=undergrad_rev#:%7E:text=Avatar%3A%20The%20Last%20Airbender%2C%20commonly,Japanese%2C%20and%20Tibetan%20cultures%20respectively.)). Region also plays a role because the Water Tribe is split between the North and the South and have different customs.\n\nAs viewers, when we are introduced to a fire bender, there are certain ethnic features we expect: straight black hair, pale skin, and sharp features. Therefore if we see people with these features, we assume they are part of the Fire Nation. There is also a certain type of temperament we expect as well because of their customs and views. While it does create stereotypes, it is not based on our real world ones, but based on the ones in the show. It also doesn't sound like a racist treatise :)" }, { "answer_id": 58688, "author": "David Siegel", "author_id": 37041, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37041", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "There are several ways to handle this. Science fiction and fantasy stories often simply assume that humans, and common species such as horses, dogs, robins, wheat, and oak trees exist, even though there is no connection with Earth in the universe of the story. A similar assumption could be made about human \"races\", that is clusters of physical traits which have often been used to distinguish between ethnic groups. The novel series Game of Thrones follows this pattern, as do the \"Diskworld\" novels.\n\nMore originally, one could create ethnic groups as part of the world-building behind the story. These might use some of the traits that have been used to mark off ethnic groups on Earth, but in different combinations. Such traits as skin tone, hair thickness and curl, shape of facial parts (eyes and noses, for example), relative height and build, and the like could be used, but in different combinations than are historically seen here on Earth. Light skin with slanted eyes and curly hair, dark skin with straight hair and short stature, or whatever combination the author invents. The story might include cultures that are biased against some traits and in favor of others. Something like this was done in Addison's The Goblin Emperor. In the Alternate History story Down in the Bottomlands by Turtledove there is a group known as the \"strongbrows\", which is a somewhat persecuted minority in some countries. Eventually the reader realizes that these are descendants of the people known to us as Neanderthals.\n\nOr one could describe people with various physical traits, but not assume that they are divided into ethnic groups in the setting of the story.\n\nWhich of these would be best depends on the author's style and intentions." }, { "answer_id": 58689, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "If your world is populated by humans who evolved and adapted to climates as they spread across the globe, then --absent a cataclismic event wiping out local populations -- then you would expect diverse populations. You could use the traits of humans populating your planet -- Earth -- as a reference for which groups populated your world.\n\nThis method is used in \"A Wizard of EarthSea\" by Ursula Leguin for the populations of the many islands of EarthSea. She associates the name of the people with their kingdom or empire or island if it is large enough. For example, the ZurgMg attack the island of Gont -- Ged's home -- and are described as having long blonde hair and their ships are long boats. We'd recognize them as Vikings, most likely. And the people of Gont are described as dark with curly hair -- if my memory serves me.\n\nOnce she established the typical appearance of a people, she'd largely use only the name of the people to describe them - a ZurgMgish warrior or a Gont Sheppard and many many more -- when a new character entered the story.\n\nAlso, she wasn't really fanatically about linking a new character's appearance with any ethic group. I think she used this as a subtle hint that as Ged became better educated, he saw individuals and not representatives of their respective groups.\n\nIf your world was populated by an Act of God, whether some deity zapped them into existence or relocated them across time and space to inhabit the planet, then the populace of that world would be -- most likely -- less diverse and might even be a monoculture. It kind of depends on the length of time and the drivers of cultural drift that population(s) experience." } ]	2021/07/30	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58653", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51109/" ]
58,654	In my fantasy novel(very simplified version) my protagonist is a slave boy who is dragged into a crew of powerful beings because he is being hunted by the tyrant government(he is impure of blood and therefore dangerous as far as the government and it's God ruler is concerned, very long story). When the government can't defeat the crew with force, they try to destroy it from the inside and insert another boy to sow mistrust. The tension builds with only the government boy knowing, and in the middle of the novel/first climax, one wrong word by one of the crew members destroys the crew and the crew members massacre each other, with only the protagonist and the leader getting out alive, still with the task of overthrowing the tyrannical government. I have some, but not much trouble creating the gradually rising tension, but with the conversation that started the destruction of the crew, the destruction/massacre itself, and the horrific aftermath, the entire chapter seems anticlimactic, considering that it is a literal massacre. I have revised the chapter many times, but all of the revisions have the exact same problem as the very first draft. How do you write points like this in a story, without making it seem anticlimactic?	[ { "answer_id": 58656, "author": "Anton Merzliakov", "author_id": 51649, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51649", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "I would agree with wetcircuit's comment. If the scene does not fit the story, if the story isn't worth the scene -- then it would seem anticlimactic. There's no easy fix there -- you would need to rewrite quite a lot. I've been there, it sucks, but in the end it was well worth it.\n\nBut don't be sad just yet. Maybe one chapter is what it takes. And maybe you don't need to rewrite anything.\n\nSince I never saw your text I can't be sure. I'm not sure what do you mean by \"revised the chapter\": rewriting from scratch or making changes? Sometimes it's easier to scrap the chapter and rewrite it from scratch that to revise it. Speaking from experience.\n\nMy advice is to see what others think. Let someone read your story. If currently there's nobody around, then Facebook has a few groups where you can find beta-readers. I speak from experience here. The same scenes that I used to find \"okay-ish\" was praised by some of my betas. We shall always seek another perspective. And while they are reading it, you shall put the story aside and do something else. Go back to it a few days later with a fresh head. This may help a lot." }, { "answer_id": 58686, "author": "Stephen Daddona", "author_id": 44171, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44171", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I think you should let the anticlimax stand. You can follow it with a quiet scene: Perhaps the chapter would end with the two survivors quietly walking away from the carnage, together or in separate directions. The next chapter opens in a different location, taking the reader's attention away from the traumatic event. There is a scene in the movie, \"Steel Magnolias,\" in which Sally Fields' character has a few, very emotional paragraphs, which had all of us in the theater in tears to the extent that we could hardly see, that ended with another character telling her to hit one of the other women. When that line was delivered, the entire theater burst into laughter while the tears were still running down our cheeks. The contrast is what I want to draw attention to here. Extremely sad in \"Steel Magnolias\" to suddenly humorous, and extremely violent in your story to suddenly very calm. You could probably find other ways to create a sudden contrast which would release the tension." }, { "answer_id": 58710, "author": "cmm", "author_id": 32128, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/32128", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Being anti-climatic is not a condemnation of a section. It is possible that your sense of climax could be broader.\n\nA story is a combination of both tension and release. As usually used, the climax is the point where the tension is maximum and the release begins.\n\nTension and release can take many forms. Although a climax often sizzles with energy, a climax can be an emotional low. Consider a person suffering from depression as they contemplate the world without them in it. Imagine the inner struggle of a person falling to the low point in their life. Or perhaps the hero when their closest friend has betrayed them.\n\nA time with no action, no resolution, even no obvious release of tension can be a climax. Imagine intensity but no motion. Silence in a field of chaos. Boredom draining all ambition. Then, give the scene the slightest tap. A whisper or a thought. Your reader will turn the page.\n\nI don't know your story. I accept that this material needs to be there, or your rewrites could have removed it. Rather than worry that it is anti-climatic, listen to what you've written. If the emotions are true to the characters, if the narrative retains your chosen perspective, if the knowledge the reader gains is critical to what follows, then leave it in. Don't let your distrust of a reader's patience cripple your story.\n\nIf it doesn't sound true, then make it true. Make it burn with truth, even if there is no visible path forward. Truth will power your story forward." }, { "answer_id": 58720, "author": "Tau", "author_id": 42901, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/42901", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "A suggestion for you: try cutting the scene with the massacre entirely and see how the story reads. As in, skip from the point where the crew starts drawing weapons (or potentially the first person is killed) to the two shell-shocked survivors still reeling from their close escape.\n\nIt's possible this will flow a lot better. The reason is that I think in the situation you describe, it's easy for any drawn-out depiction of the massacre to end up being a pointless gore-fest. In the preceding scenes, you're primed the readers to be concerned about the tensions in the crew and between the crew members, the mistrust being sown, etc. But as soon as you start the massacre, that source of tension is gone because the worst has already happened. In some sense, as soon as the violence starts the outcome is inevitable. That means there may be no sense of tension in the actual scene anymore, no more build-up, nothing the readers are afraid of happening or want to see resolved - no wonder it falls flat in that case.\n\n(The only way I can see writing out the massacre working is if your new source of tension is fear for your protagonist's survival - but if you're going that route you need to foreshadow it in the previous chapters, have scenes where the crew members threaten the protagonist or he's afraid of them, so it doesn't come out of nowhere.)\n\nOn the other hand, it's possible skipping straight to everyone being dead will read as incoherent, with the jump to the crew all being dead coming off as odd and non-sequitur-like. That is not a sign that you need the massacre scene. Instead, I'd consider it a sign that you haven't done enough foreshadowing of this as a potential outcome and need to do extra work in the previous chapters to fix this. Some examples of how to do this might be: have a strong increase in violent talk by the crew, have previous close calls where crew members almost start violence, have your protagonist be aware of the rising mistrust and frantically try to talk people down from it (with increasingly limited success). If you lay the right groundwork to make it clear to the readers that \"crew kills each other due to a wrong word\" is a possibility which your protagonist is desperately trying to prevent, then it happening in the end should hopefully come off as a narratively appropriate tragic climax - clear enough of one that you don't even need to write the actual massacre for readers to follow along." } ]	2021/07/30	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58654", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51646/" ]
58,660	Is there something you can achieve without a overarching plot that you can't with one? Let's say you write a collection of short stories ala The Witcher, is there any good reason why you shouldn't have a overarching plot? I am wondering if an overarching plot is always recommended or if people have experimented in the past and tried to write a book without an overarching plot to achieve something that couldn't have been done with an overarching plot.	[ { "answer_id": 58702, "author": "KeithS", "author_id": 15580, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15580", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Per the comment, a good reason you should have an overarching plot is to avoid the stories being too \"episodic\". Serial writers can't change things too much in one single episode, without a master plan, because with older parts of the story released, it's often difficult or impossible to go back and say \"what really happened was this\". Unless you're Guojgu Lecav, but that's a special case. Anyway, when you're writing a sequence of stories, if the end of each one leaves the universe in the same state in which you found it, then while it's easy to pick up where you left off for the next story, the story you just wrote likely has little meaning to the reader/viewer, because nothing changed. So, even sitcoms and other prime-time TV entertainment create arcs over seasons and/or the entire series, with incremental character development through each episode towards end goals in mind for the overall story being told about these characters.\n\nNow, there's a disadvantage to story arcs. First off, even though it's how we tell stories, they aren't realistic. Olympic gold medalists get up the morning after the medal ceremony and continue their lives. People who die are survived by those who don't. Real life doesn't come to a conclusion. This is often played with by ending a story without actually concluding it. It's a literary risk, because it specifically subverts our expectation of having what we just saw/read get wrapped up in a bow and dropped in our lap. However, you as the author have to stop writing at some point, even though we subconsciously know the lives of the characters continue (unless they don't, which is a fairly powerful \"conclusion\").\n\nThe second major disadvantage of a story arc is that trying to continue past the planned arc can feel like you \"jumped the shark\". Which is partly true; you intended the narrative to end at \"happily ever after\". \"Happily ever after\" implies no further conflict, no more enemies, no more drama in the lives of the characters you created. In short, no real reason for people to continue to be invested. Sondheim specifically played with this in \"Into The Woods\"; \"happily ever after\" is just the end of Act I, with Act II showing us that it in fact isn't always \"happily ever after\", and living in a fairy tale can be exhausting.\n\nTo keep the reader engaged, you have to invent new conflict, create new enemies, and inject new drama into the \"happily ever after\" that you tied up in a knot at the end of the last story. This often isn't easy, especially if tying up loose ends means one or more key characters, good or bad, aren't around anymore. If the Big Bad of your show or book series dies in Book/Season 7, you need a a reason to write Book/Season 8. The most common such reason is a Bigger Bad, who in some way is even more of a threat than Big Bad was. If the main character's key love interest died killing the Big Bad, you need a reason for the main character to want to fight Bigger Bad when they already lost everything they care about in their victory against Big Bad.\n\nThis continuation often feels artificial, often because it is; the writers ran out of ideas, the producers decided to end the series with the big finale arc they had planned, and that generates such buzz about the show that the network convinces the production to keep it going. The \"right\" answer is \"no, let it be done, we'll come up with something new\", but what's the \"right\" answer worth when this series is your first big success, and Season 8 is a guaranteed $2 million an episode?\n\nThe best writers know how to split the difference, creating a narrative that comes to a natural stopping point in the telling, while not wrapping things up so tightly that it's difficult to pick the story back up. Writers, even some of the literary greats, often find themselves unable to cleanly create mini-denumons in a large arc, and end up writing epics that often have to be artificially split into practically-sized books. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is only the most well-known example. Good people in the editorial process can make it feel less artificial, but it's ideal if the writer approaches a larger arc with at least some idea of where they're going to tie the bale of each story, and always leaves one story with the possibility of another, even if no-one knows what it would be." }, { "answer_id": 58709, "author": "David Siegel", "author_id": 37041, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37041", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "People have in the past written books without overall plots, but I think it was more because the desired effects did not require such a master plot than because having one would have caused a problem.\n\nOne common form is a collection of separate stories with a common setting , perhaps some common characters, but no clearly linked plot. The Dying Earth by Jacq Votse comes to mind. This form allowed him to display his unusual setting in a series of slices. Each slice had a very distinct plot, and there were some relations between slices, but nothing essential. Having an overarching plot would have required fitting each slice into that plot or discarding any that did not fit. Note that Vunre's later books with the same setting The Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel the Clever do have overarching plots, and indeed the two form a single story arc. These are also sets of related stories or episodes (originally published separately) , but they share a common PoV character, and one episode follows directly on another, building on the situation created by the previous story, and allowing continuing character development. The major plot problem is not so0lved until the end.\n\nAnother form that often does not have an ovearching plot is the memoir. As life usually does not have a master plot, a realistic memoir may not either. Examples that come to mind include The Years of the Forest by Helen Hoover and Adventures in Contentment by Dator Gxawson. Here attempting to impose a plot would have distorted the works. Biographies generally have the same issue. So do accounts of real events, such as The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court by Woodward, or My Life in Court By Nizer.\n\nSome novels have a plot which is more or less just \"and then this happens\". Sometimes this can feel overly episodic, but sometimes not. One very popular example is the Iuqreh/Maturin Novels by Patrick O'Brian. These are naval adventures during the Napoleonic Wars, for those who do not know them. There are several multi-book plot arcs, but sometimes one plot arc ends and another starts in mid-novel. I was recently re-reading The Reverse of the Medal The first section is devoted to seagoing adventures, including one episode where one ship chases another, very excitedly told. These tie up the plot arc from the previous novel The Far Side of the World Then the ship lands and the crew is dispersed. Captain Iuqreh is tricked into some unwise investments, and then is accused of what we would now call insider trading, and brought to trial. The two sections have no obvious connection, although it later turns out that an adversary from two books before (Treason's Harbor) manipulated the situation. This has some of the effect of a biography, and in this case it is well done and it works.\n\nSo it is surely possible tom have a book with no overarching plot, and this permits some effects which might not work if a master-plot was present. But if a plot fits a book, there is no reason it should not have one, in my view." } ]	2021/07/31	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58660", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
58,676	When should you put information that makes a dialogue understandable? Sometimes, the characters may use an idiom or expression that only makes sense if you know some world-building element of the story. Should you just avoid these dialogues all together or should you inform the readers before or after the dialogue? Example: > > "He believes himself to have been given birth in a blackened pot on > the Kamalah day." > > > --Blackened pot was the mythical pot where God was given birth to, Kamalah day refers to the day God was given birth. The religion of > Kurugh says that the next savior will be given birth in a blackend pot > on the Kamalah day. > > >	[ { "answer_id": 58677, "author": "signedav", "author_id": 49984, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/49984", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "This depends on the perspective from which you are writing. An authorial (omniscient) narrator can bring this information before or after the dialogue, because the narrator explains the world directly to the reader. A footnote would also be possible, though it's less elegant and can throw the reader off the reading flow.\n\nOtherwise, the character can explain it to his counterpart himself when asked. Sometimes authors use characters specifically to have the protagonist tell the reader the information they need (e.g. Wekcon in Sherlock Holmes).\n\nFurther, you might not inform the reader at that moment, but let them know at an earlier (or later) time what the statement is about." }, { "answer_id": 58682, "author": "Carina", "author_id": 51626, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51626", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "There is nothing wrong with keeping the dialogue. From your excerpt, it helps to make your world feel real through the characters. There are a few ways you can choose to explain your dialogue.\n\nThe first technique would be to assume that your reader will pick up as they go. In N.K Jemisin's \"Dreamblood Duology,\" the narrator explains that one of the characters has seen \"x floods.\" The reader can assume that this is synonymous to being x years of age. It also tells the reader about the climate of the current city, Gujaareh because we can also assume there is a wet season where a large flood is common. Later in the book, other descriptions and conversations help to confirm these assumptions. Brandon Sanderson also does this quite a bit throughout \"The Stormlight Archive\" with exclamations like \"Kelak's hand\". I don't recall if Kelak and his hand's significance is explained, but the reader understands that this is similar to saying \"Oh God,\" in our world.\n\nAnother technique is using footnotes. As signedav explained in their answer, a drawback to footnotes is that it can throw off the reader's flow. In \"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao\", Junot Diaz uses footnotes to explain Latin American history, politics, and superstitions. Footnotes in this novel can take up almost half the page and go on for several pages. It is almost like reading two different works, which can be difficult for both the reader to keep up.\n\nThe last technique I will mention is a glossary. This is often used in nonfiction works. \"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks\" by Rebecca Skloot provides a timeline of events and a glossary that explains the different people, events, and places in her work. Leveraging this technique in fiction allows you to have a safety net for your readers." }, { "answer_id": 58687, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "I'll add one more suggestion to all the great ones you've already got.\n\nLet the story tell you what needs to be explained.\n\nWrite the passage only providing the information you would when using your chosen point of view (for instance if it's deep third person, the POV-character will likely know about the pot and its meaning, etc, so they won't spend a thought on this at all).\n\nIt's possible that the story will offer a way to explain the pot later. Or not.\n\nOnce you've finished the first draft, put it away for weeks, months, years... whatever time you need to forget the details.\n\nFor me, it's about 3 months. After that, I must read the story from the first page to the last or I'll start mixing things up (who said absentmindedness was bad?), and I'm quite able to detect things that don't work or won't make sense to someone that reads the text for the first time.\n\nOn this reread of the manuscript you might be able to test if your pot makes sense or not.\n\nMaybe it needs to be explained more—then explain it more (using any of the other answers). Maybe there's an explanation but too late—then move it up in the text.\n\nWrite an exploratory first draft and finalize the novel in editing.\n\nEven if you're like me and do a lot of outlining your first draft might contain a cohesive story, but will likely still need changes to small details or larger parts. The only first draft that needs no editing is either produced by a senseless fool or an insufferable genious. And a genius who doesn't take the chance to \"do the test\" one more time to improve their score is still a senseless fool..." } ]	2021/08/01	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58676", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
58,683	Say, I’m writing a non-fiction book on some subject. The book covers a couple of themes, and each theme consists of chapters with descriptions of topics within that theme. (Not that it matters, but it’s practical philosophical-ish.) For example, there are seven themes and each theme consists of (roughly) eight topics. With the aim of writing a concise text, I want to minimize the semantic overlap between topics. So, when comparing each topic/chapter with any of the other chapters, I would like to see a high cohesion within each topic and limited overlap between chapters. Visually, if I'd cluster all the book’s words, I’d expect to see distinct groups with each topic a separate group (after filtering out stop words and other generic words). Or put differently, I would expect to be able to get lists of words that are unique and telling for each topic since they don’t appear in any other topic. What’s a technique (or even term for this need, other than “textual analysis”) that I could use? Any tool that you’d know? Any other book (!) that you can recommend on this topic? [English isn't my native language, so apologies for any grammatical errors.]	[ { "answer_id": 58727, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "With the reservation from the comments above that this isn't a good way to analyze the cohesiveness or conciseness of a text and that it will likely rather waste your time, you could use a text classification technique for preparing a word set for building a decision tree.\n\nI don't know what this is called though.\n\nWe did this in an AI lab at UNI where we were tasked with classifying articles into one of two sets. (Someone defined them as \"coal\" and \"cauliflower.\")\n\nYou start by filtering out stopwords as you mention.\n\nThen for each of the remaining words, you count how many documents it exists in. Let's call this value `N1` for the number of documents containing the word in set 1 and `N2` for the number of documents containing the word in set 2.\n\nFinally, you determine the value of the word as:\n\n```\nABS(N1 - N2)\n\n```\n\nThis means that if the word exists in many documents in both sets, the number gets low. If it exists a lot in one set but not in the other the number gets high. If it doesn't exist a lot in either set the number gets low.\n\nThe number of documents in each set must be the same, or you should transform `N1` and `N2` into percentages of documents having the word in each set (i.e. divide `N1` with the total number of documents in set 1, etc).\n\nWhen we compared the lists of words for each set we found \"coal\" was highly ranked in one set and \"cauliflower\" was highly ranked in the other. (And we took this list of words that was a good representation of the difference between the document sets and created a decision tree, but that's beside this discussion.)\n\nI'm not sure how to do this for more than two sets of documents though, but the essence of the process would be to find words used a lot in one set and used much less in all the others.\n\nPerhaps, for each set and each word do:\n\n```\nMAX(0, ABS(Nthis - N1 - N2 ... -Nx))\n\n```\n\nWhere `Nthis` is the number of documents having the word in the current set. And `N1 - N2 - ... - Nx` is the number in the other documents. (Or percentages if the document sets are of different sizes.)\n\nOr create an accumulative word score by calculating the score for the word in the current document set against all other document sets one at a time summing the word score.\n\nYou need to fire up your IDE and test approaches.\n\nUpdate: Pseudo code\n\nNot sure this helps but I couldn't stop myself... This would be how to calculate a word score for more than two sets... maybe...:\n\n```\nwords // all words in all document sets minus stop words\nwordScore // score of words\ndocSetWords // a list of doc sets that is a list of words in that doc set\n // i.e. docSetWords[0][0] = first word in first set (pseudowise...)\n\nforeach word in words\n for i = 0 to docSetWords.length - 1\n for j = i + 1 to docSetWords.length\n N1 = count word in docSetWords[i]\n N2 = count word in docSetWords[j]\n wordScore[word] = wordScore[word] + ABS(N1 - N2)\n // I.e. sum of word scores\n end\n end\nend\n\n```" }, { "answer_id": 58731, "author": "Jochem Schulenklopper", "author_id": 51675, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51675", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "From <https://medium.com/nanonets/topic-modeling-with-lsa-psla-lda-and-lda2vec-555ff65b0b05>, \"topic modeling\" might be the term, and \"LSA\" and \"LDA\" are useful techniques for that.\n\nFrom that article (emphasis mine):\n\n\"In natural language understanding (NLU) tasks, there is a hierarchy of lenses through which we can extract meaning — from words to sentences to paragraphs to documents. At the document level, one of the most useful ways to understand text is by analyzing its topics. The process of learning, recognizing, and extracting these topics across a collection of documents is called topic modeling.\n\nAll topic models are based on the same basic assumption:\n\n* each document consists of a mixture of topics, and\n* each topic consists of a collection of words.\nIn other words, topic models are built around the idea that the semantics of our document are actually being governed by some hidden, or “latent,” variables that we are not observing. As a result, the goal of topic modeling is to uncover these latent variables — topics — that shape the meaning of our document and corpus.\"\n\n\"Latent Semantic Analysis, or LSA, is one of the foundational techniques in topic modeling. The core idea is to take a matrix of what we have — documents and terms — and decompose it into a separate document-topic matrix and a topic-term matrix.\"\n\n\"LDA stands for Latent Dirichlet Allocation. [...] With LDA, we can extract human-interpretable topics from a document corpus, where each topic is characterized by the words they are most strongly associated with.\"" } ]	2021/08/02	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58683", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51675/" ]
58,693	Aside from mind maps, what other graphical diagrams and graphical elements can you use to document and plan out your novel? I am specifically referring to anything that has a graphical element, so any plain text or text documents with some images are excluded. I am wondering if there's anything else. I can think of timelines too, but aside from those two, I can't think of any.	[ { "answer_id": 58700, "author": "Sciborg", "author_id": 33846, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/33846", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "Freytag's Pyramid\n-----------------\n\nReference: <https://writers.com/freytags-pyramid>\n\nFreytag's Pyramid is a famous visual story planning device, and has been used for centuries to describe the most common story structure in writing:\n\n1. Exposition (the premise),\n2. Rising Action (building up the tension),\n3. Climax (the big event where all the tension comes to a head),\n4. Falling Action (recovering from the climax),\n5. Resolution (everything works out and loose ends are tied up).\n\n[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/l5DpI.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/l5DpI.png)\n\nVisual Story Timeline\n---------------------\n\nReference: <https://diymfa.com/writing/mapping-out-your-story>\n\nYou can also lay out the events of your story in chronological order on a visual timeline, which helps you plan out when things take place. For example, here is a visual timeline of the Hunger Games:\n\n[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8v7ov.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8v7ov.png)" }, { "answer_id": 58701, "author": "KeithS", "author_id": 15580, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15580", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Similar to a timeline, but more detailed, is the Gantt chart. It is essentially a timeline with multiple lines, converging and diverging, displaying the interaction of various interconnected pieces of a larger project. As used in project management, it allows identification of the \"critical path\" of events that must happen in sequence and how long each one will take, so that enough time can be budgeted for the project as a whole. Events not forming part of the critical path can happen concurrently, but these events must still be scheduled to start and end on time so their intersections with the critical path occur on time.\n\nFor a novelist, Gantt charts allow the writer to plan out the complex interconnected timelines of character backstories and actions, avoiding anachronisms when explaining the overall sequence of events. More than just a timeline, Gantt charts allow not just chronological but spatial organization of events based on the spheres of influence of each character, allowing the omniscient writer to keep their characters (and the reader) non-omniscient.\n\nOther graphical tools beyond general mind maps include \"entity-relational diagrams\". The original coined use of that term is in data modelling, but I'm using it more generally. Think of a family tree, but more general, modelling not just marriage and parentage, but all kinds of interpersonal relationships, like boss-employee, teacher-student, dating/affairs, as well as relationships between people and nonhuman things that are important to the story, like tying people to places. Similar to a mind map, you draw circles/bubbles for each \"entity\" you're tracking in the model. Smaller bubbles linked to the large one can be used for useful pieces of information, or you can write those inside bigger bubbles of each entity. Then, you draw lines between entities and write concise terms of the relationship, with an arrow pointing in the way the relationship line should be traversed for the stated relationship to be valid (if the descriptor is hierarchical)." }, { "answer_id": 58723, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Activity diagrams with swimlanes\n--------------------------------\n\nI use [activity diagrams with swimlanes](https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/swim-lanes-in-activity-diagram/). I create one node per scene and use one swimlane per POV. I use red lines (pun intended) to connect the scenes in story order.\n\nMany software engineering drawing apps have support for this. My favorite, [yEd](https://www.yworks.com/products/yed) has functions to automatically structure the elements [hierarchically](https://docs.yworks.com/yfiles-html/dguide/layout/hierarchical_layout.html).\n\nFamily trees\n------------\n\nFamily trees might come in handy if you're creating an epic saga about a family or two. Otherwise, likely not. (yEd has layout functions for [family trees](https://docs.yworks.com/yfiles-html/dguide/layout/family_tree_layout.html) as well, but you could also use genealogy programs like [Gramps](https://gramps-project.org/blog/) to get the whole family data in... if your family's history is really important.)\n\nConflict diagrams\n-----------------\n\nI also use [conflict diagrams](https://mharoldpage.co.uk/2019/03/13/conflict-diagrams-a-quick-way-to-build-non-linear-ttrpg-scenarios/), invented by M Harold Page in his \"[Storyteller Tools](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00K6PBXY6).\" These are great to get to a higher level of your novel's conflicts and alliances. (I create them with yEd, I think he uses [Scapple](https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview).)\n\nConnections and relationships\n-----------------------------\n\nUsing yEd and putting in characters and connecting them with lines of different colors or patterns and then running the [organic layout function](https://docs.yworks.com/yfiles-html/dguide/layout/organic_layout.html) usually produces a nice diagram over connections between people and sometimes organizations.\n\nI've used it to visualize a resistance group organization both mentioning people and structuring the general organization of a cell in that group. (Check the above-referenced yEd manual page. You'll get an idea of how to do this with groups.)\n\nTimelines\n---------\n\nOf course, no novel could ever be written without the timeline diagram. This is akin to a Gantt chart, and I use [Aeon Timeline](https://www.aeontimeline.com/) to create them.\n\nIndex cards\n-----------\n\nMany authors use [index cards](https://philhalton.com/2019/11/28/story-outline-index-cards/) on a corkboard or wall. It could definitely be called a \"diagram\" and the cards themselves graphical elements. Especially if you purchase different colored cards.\n\nMany writing programs also have index card handling (e.g. Scrivener, Final Draft, and Storyist). Some even have swimlane handling in the index card view." } ]	2021/08/03	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58693", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
58,704	In films, you hear people exchange a phrase or two before the camera pans to someone else and so on. Is it ok to do that in a novel? What are some ways of doing this? Example: "The cops came in" Jouqye said. "Oh, seriously!?" KinaKE said. "Yeah, I--" Jouqye said Masjum was sitting on a couch smoking a cigar. He was extremely hungry, because he didn't eat anything for hours. "Man, I am hungry." Masjum said. "I am too and--" Warxo replied. I am not sure why, but I don't think it's possible to capture that effect outside of films. The transition text cannot cut someone talking. I mean we can, but it looks odd and it doesn't feel justified to cut a dialogue like that unless someone is interrupted by an actual person and not because the "focus" of the narration was lost.	[ { "answer_id": 58706, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "I take it that you're asking how to write dialog where people interrupt one another.\n\nThis formatting differs from culture to culture (or language to language). [In English](https://www.thebluegarret.com/blog/using-ellipses-and-dashes), it's the em dash (—) that's used for interruptions. In other cultures/languages, the ellipsis (…) could be used to do the same. So if you write in any other language than English you'll need to do research.\n\nI'd write your example like this in order to make it obvious they are interrupting each other:\n\n> \n> \"The cops came in,\" Jouqye said.\n> \n> \n> \"Oh, seriously!?\" KinaKE said.\n> \n> \n> \"Yeah,\" Jouqye said, \"I—\"\n> \n> \n> \"Man, I am hungry,\" Masjum said. He was sitting on a couch…\n> \n> \n> \n\nI.e. avoid any dialog cues or other text between the line of dialog being interrupted and the line that interrupts.\n\nDavces pops into the scene a bit abruptly, at least if he's sitting on the couch. If he comes in smoking a cigar, I think it might work better. Or you might introduce him earlier in the scene, maybe even have some \"hungry\" body language from him while Jouqye and KinaKE talk.\n\nAlso, pay attention to the [punctuation and formatting](https://self-publishingschool.com/how-to-write-dialogue/) throughout this example. Dialog does have a right and a wrong format...\n\nThis is an English example. Other cultures might use different dialog formatting, e.g. replacing quotes with a dash, using other types of quotes, or changing the order of the quote and comma. So again, if you're not writing in English, you'll need to check out the convention for your language/culture." }, { "answer_id": 58707, "author": "Carina", "author_id": 51626, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51626", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "If I understand your question correctly, there seems to be two parts. The first part is how to write the dialogue for when a character is interrupted. The second part is how to describe a character entering a scene without actually entering the room.\n\nFor the first part, Erk's response works well. Using a dash (—) or ellipses (…) is a common cue for a sentence being cut short.\n\nFor the second part, you can use Jouqye as a way of \"panning the camera\". For example:\n\n> \n> \"Man, I am hungry.\" Masjum said, startling Jouqye.\n> \n> \n> Jouqye turned to see Masjum with his head thrown back on the couch. In her heated conversation\n> with KinaKE, she almost forgot he was there.\n> \n> \n>" }, { "answer_id": 58708, "author": "Kate Gregory", "author_id": 15601, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15601", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "The reason you see this technique in a movie is because they have no other way of telling you that Jouqye and KinaKE continued to discuss the time the cops came in but our attention is going elsewhere. In a novel, you have narration and a POV character.\n\n> \n> \"The cops came in\" Jouqye said.\n> \n> \n> \"Oh, seriously!?\" replied KinaKE.\n> \n> \n> Jouqye continued to explain but [I/Skepe] turned to see Masjum sitting on a couch smoking a cigar.\n> \n> \n> \"Man, I am hungry.\" Masjum said. \"I haven't eaten anything for hours.\"\n> \n> \n> \"I am too\" Warxo agreed.\n> \n> \n> Meanwhile, outside, ...\n> \n> \n> \n\nIn addition to \"meanwhile,\" you have \"across town\" or \"back at the apartment\" and so on. Rather than interrupting a conversation mid-word, you narrate that \"they continued to argue/reminisce/plan\" and then you use a scene switching phrase to establish that new dialog is happening in a different location." } ]	2021/08/03	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58704", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
58,714	Can you add worldbuilding footnotes in your novel? Most philosophy books have footnotes on them, because sometimes the text by itself is too hard to understand. Are there novels that use footnotes to explain their extremely complex worldbuilding, or it's something no one would do and no one has done? Why is it a bad idea or a good idea?	[ { "answer_id": 58715, "author": "Allan", "author_id": 49503, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/49503", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "It is rare yet has been done. I flipped through a few dozen novels and short story collections and found a few in a the book Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges\n\n\"1 There is an erasure in the manuscript, perhaps the name of the port had been removed.\" (in the short story The Immortal,)\n\nThe bad idea part is it is unusual and could put some people off.\nThe good idea part is it is another tool available and like any tool, if used well it can help craft a masterpiece." }, { "answer_id": 58724, "author": "Juhasz", "author_id": 42164, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/42164", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "I would guess that the most famous recent example of a novel with footnotes (actually, they're endnotes) is David Foster Xallucu's Infinite Jest.\n\nThe novel includes 388 endnotes, some of which have footnotes of their own.\n\nBut these endnotes are not (only) included because Xallucu wanted to share the details of his near-future world unobtrusively. They are a device the author intentionally used to produce a specific effect in the reader.\n\n> \n> In an interview with Crashoi Rosu, Xallucu characterized the novel's heavy use of endnotes as a method of disrupting the linearity of the text while maintaining some sense of narrative cohesion.\n> \n> \n> \n\n[Infinite Jest - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest)\n\nXallucu explained that the disjointed feeling of flipping back and forth between the main text and the endnotes was intended to simulate the experience of living in the late twentieth century, when competing urgent demands on our attention constantly jerk our focus from one thing to another.\n\nThe endnotes are also intended to create a narrative structure that resembles a fractal, or a [Sierpiński triangle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierpi%C5%84ski_triangle). You can hear him discuss this idea in his interview with Michael Silverblat:\n[Bookworm - David Foster Xallucu: Infinite Jest](https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/bookworm/david-foster-wallace-infinite-jest)\n\nPerhaps a more extreme example is Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire, which takes the form of a 999-line poem, followed by many pages of endnote commentary. In this case, the entire story is found in the endnotes.\n\n> \n> Starting with the epigraph and table of contents, Pale Fire looks like the publication of a 999-line poem in four cantos (\"Pale Fire\") by the fictional John Shade with a foreword, extensive commentary, and index by his self-appointed editor, Charles Kinbote. Kinbote's commentary takes the form of notes to various numbered lines of the poem. Here and in the rest of his critical apparatus, Kinbote explicates the poem very little. Focusing instead on his own concerns, he divulges what proves to be the plot piece by piece, some of which can be connected by following the many cross-references.\n> \n> \n> \n\n[Pale Fire - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Fire)\n\nAgain, the choice to include endnotes is obvious motivated by much more than a desire to include extra detail, or clarify something confusing in the main text.\n\nThe general point I'm trying to make is that using endnotes in novels can be done extremely effectively, but perhaps only when the author's choices are considerate, deliberate, and well-informed (Xallucu and Nabokov, like all great writers, are also great readers)." }, { "answer_id": 58725, "author": "hszmv", "author_id": 25666, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25666", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I would say in fiction, if you are creating a new term, it must be explained in such a way to the reader that they can understand it. This can be anything from context clues (In Avatar: The Legend of Korra, the characters learn of something called a \"Mover\" from Varrick, an eccentric rich business man who supports them. Varrick offers to demonstrate what a Mover is and begins to set up and demonstrate... what is a very early movie projector to a modern audience. From that point on, all the characters refer to film as \"Movers\" because now the audience knows... in the setting of an early 20th century technological world, the characters not knowing what Movers are is expected, so it's included), from characters inventing the word whole-cloth and describing the function (In Book 1 of Hijrp Potfeq, Albus Dumbledore's first acts of magic is to appear from nowhere and use a device to turn off all the lights on the street. The narrator calls this device a \"Put-Outer\" in Book 1 but in later books, the reader learns that these simple terms describe what the Wizarding World refers to as \"Apperating\" and \"Dilluminators\" respectively.).\n\nOr the term is used in a turn of phrase or exchange that the reader can make the substitution easily (In Star Wars, when Princess Leuo calls Han a \"stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking Nerf Herder\" and Han takes offense to \"scruffy-looking\" to Leuo's frustration, the audience can infer that because of the nature of the combination of the three familiar insults (stuck-up, half-witted, and scruffy-looking) and her frustration at where he placed his offense, that Nerf Herding was not a desirable profession or one that was loathsome. We need not know what the hell a Nerf is, nor do we care because of the four insults we do hear, we know three of them, and the least offensive is the one where Han balked. It's akin to someone in the real world calling a person an \"poorly dressed, cheap, illiterate whore\" and the recipient of the insult taking offense at implication that she does not offer her clients a high quality service for a reasonable price.).\n\nAt either rate, your novel should show us what these details are, not footnote it, unless the fictional work is being written in an academic voice (you're writing a fictional text book, where footnotes happen).\n\nAfter all, in Star Wars, the Clone Wars were discussed as a historical event in the first film, 20+ years before they were ever depicted in a film themselves." }, { "answer_id": 58726, "author": "Zeiss Ikon", "author_id": 26297, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/26297", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "This is done fairly regularly in \"hard science fiction\" -- as by authors such as Hal Clement or Jerry Pournelle, stories such as Mission of Gravity, Still River, Close to Critical, King David's Spaceship -- and quite recently Outies.\n\nThese authors sell their work in part by making it as scientifically plausible as possible (usually giving themselves a pass on one or two items without which there is no story, like a faster than light space drive in a story about the interaction of humans with a non-human intelligent species), and readers like myself often get a kick out of reading the scientific reasoning that went into some fairly bizarre situations or alien species.\n\nThis, in fact, is a situation where it may be not just permitted, but highly desirable to include worldbuilding information (from the above authors, often couched as a scientific report or research paper) as an afterword or end notes." } ]	2021/08/05	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58714", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
58,716	Many agents ask for the first 3 chapters. Is a prologue a chapter? So send the prologue & chapters One & two?	[ { "answer_id": 58718, "author": "Allan", "author_id": 49503, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/49503", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Your best to confirm with the particular person as there isn't full standardization.\n\nFrom the submissions guidelines of the publisher [Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy](http://www.edgewebsite.com/authors.html), they consider it separate.\n\n> \n> What to Submit\n> \n> \n> 1. Required Extras (see below)\n> 2. Query/Cover Letter (see below)\n> 3. Synopsis (see below)\n> 4. Title Page (see below)\n> 5. Prologue (optional) (see below)\n> 6. Chapters One, Two, Three (do not send more chapters) (see below)\n> \n> \n>" }, { "answer_id": 59008, "author": "Irene", "author_id": 51985, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51985", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "The best way is to clarify this question with an agent you work with. According to the majority of editorial guidelines, a prologue is not considered a chapter, so you should send chapters 1-3.\n\nUnfortunately, there is not a general standardization. Publishers usually provide their own submissions guidelines." } ]	2021/08/05	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58716", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51697/" ]
58,730	I'm wondering about the correct way to mark up icon/menu item/dialog names in the context of technical writing (user's guide). Here's a small excerpt from a document I'm writing: > > Clicking the “Duplicate Register Map” icon creates creates a deep copy > of the corresponding register map. The copy gets the same name as the > original register map with the addition of a `- COPY` suffix. Please > rename the copy using the Edit Register Map dialog afterwards to give > it a valid name. > > > Is it better to use quotes or italics for such purposes?	[ { "answer_id": 58732, "author": "D. A. Hosek", "author_id": 46988, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46988", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "It doesn't really matter as long as you're consistent. In some domains, there are established practices (Windows menu names are generally printed in boldface and submenu items are indicated with `\|`, e.g., File\|Save (fancier still is to underline the shortcut letter)¹, while on MacOS there is no typographical distinction for the menu names and submenu items are indicated with `>` (note spaces), e.g., File > Save). So I would check for generally used practices for your platform as a guideline but otherwise, it's enough to be consistent in your style.\n\n---\n\n1. This may have changed—the last time I used Windows regularly was a while ago and it's been even longer since I documented Windows software." }, { "answer_id": 58782, "author": "user8356", "author_id": 8356, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8356", "pm_score": 2, "selected": true, "text": "It depends on the publishing platform, your writing tools, and established conventions. As mentioned in the previous answer, commands and button names are often highlighted using bold type. But if the text might be spoken, or read in something that doesn't support formatting (Notepad, for example), then typography doesn't work as a distinguishing sign.\n\nSimilarly, if you start bolding UI elements in instructional text, you can end up with text that's hard to read because it's littered with bold, like a black-and-white checkered floor.\n\nI avoid quotes to identify regular commands and menu items. Instructional text can become littered with quote marks. Instead, I reserve quotes for long titles of options and other UI elements, like this:\n\nSelect the \"Don't save on exit\" option, and then click Save.\n\nYou can find style guides produced by Apple and Microsoft. Both provide abundant advice about labels for UI elements, typography, procedural language, and other concerns of technical writing.\n\nTrivia: For years, Apple called one type of interface element a \"radio button\" while Microsoft called the same thing an \"option button.\" One required you to write \"check box\" (two words) and the other used \"checkbox\" (one word). I used to have all of this memorized, and then mobile interfaces and the Web happened, and things become less formal.\n\nThe important point is to be consistent. In most cases, you should also provide a \"key to typographic conventions\" in the documentation, where you explain the use of bold, italic, and other typographic or language conventions. Look at any long manual for an example of this." } ]	2021/08/06	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58730", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1987/" ]
58,733	I am currently writing about six teenagers during their senior year at an American high school. I am struggling to write authentic experiences for characters whom I do not share the same identity. One of my characters is a straight cis poc male who is sexually assaulted while on a sports team. So far, I have drawn on experiences from poc female/non-straight male perspectives that I have had or been told personally. However, I can feel that something is missing. I think my narrative of the character lacks of the societal pressures that come from being a straight cis poc male in the US. Typically, I would interview people who I want to use as inspiration for characters. However, it seems insensitive to have people relive a traumatic experience for a work of fiction that may or may not get published. So, my more general question is: how do I find the resources to write authentic experiences for characters outside of my own identity?	[ { "answer_id": 58732, "author": "D. A. Hosek", "author_id": 46988, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46988", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "It doesn't really matter as long as you're consistent. In some domains, there are established practices (Windows menu names are generally printed in boldface and submenu items are indicated with `\|`, e.g., File\|Save (fancier still is to underline the shortcut letter)¹, while on MacOS there is no typographical distinction for the menu names and submenu items are indicated with `>` (note spaces), e.g., File > Save). So I would check for generally used practices for your platform as a guideline but otherwise, it's enough to be consistent in your style.\n\n---\n\n1. This may have changed—the last time I used Windows regularly was a while ago and it's been even longer since I documented Windows software." }, { "answer_id": 58782, "author": "user8356", "author_id": 8356, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8356", "pm_score": 2, "selected": true, "text": "It depends on the publishing platform, your writing tools, and established conventions. As mentioned in the previous answer, commands and button names are often highlighted using bold type. But if the text might be spoken, or read in something that doesn't support formatting (Notepad, for example), then typography doesn't work as a distinguishing sign.\n\nSimilarly, if you start bolding UI elements in instructional text, you can end up with text that's hard to read because it's littered with bold, like a black-and-white checkered floor.\n\nI avoid quotes to identify regular commands and menu items. Instructional text can become littered with quote marks. Instead, I reserve quotes for long titles of options and other UI elements, like this:\n\nSelect the \"Don't save on exit\" option, and then click Save.\n\nYou can find style guides produced by Apple and Microsoft. Both provide abundant advice about labels for UI elements, typography, procedural language, and other concerns of technical writing.\n\nTrivia: For years, Apple called one type of interface element a \"radio button\" while Microsoft called the same thing an \"option button.\" One required you to write \"check box\" (two words) and the other used \"checkbox\" (one word). I used to have all of this memorized, and then mobile interfaces and the Web happened, and things become less formal.\n\nThe important point is to be consistent. In most cases, you should also provide a \"key to typographic conventions\" in the documentation, where you explain the use of bold, italic, and other typographic or language conventions. Look at any long manual for an example of this." } ]	2021/08/06	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58733", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51626/" ]
58,736	I have a story that I am working on that is extremely long. The first volume in the series is about 120,000 words, and that is only about half of its predicted wordcount. Counting the other entries in the series puts the whole thing in the range of 500,000 words at least. I wrote this story freeform for enjoyment when I first created it and so I just wrote what seemed interesting or natural for the story than trying to constrain myself to a specific length or structure. Since then, it has become very apparent to me that there are big problems with the story: * The story is way too long and its structure is poorly suited for a traditional novel. Nobody in their right mind would ever publish this, especially from a new author. However, I have no idea where to cut or revise and my beta readers have told me that it needs the long buildup to introduce the world and characters. There are also plot points that seem like filler but are key to later events in the series or produce important character development (i.e., there is a minor villain who is not associated with the main antagonist, which sets up the idea that there is corruption among the "good guy" faction and the minor villain becomes very important in later books). But the confrontation only works because it happens when the protagonist is inexperienced and vulnerable (and hence the villain is disproportionately threatening), which leads to the protag developing a personal enmity for the minor villain. * Many of the plot developments just don't work narratively. Because I was young and naïve when I plotted the story, I tried subverting so many genre cliches that in hindsight led to many elements feeling unsatisfying to the reader. As one example, I keep killing off all my interesting villains which after a while turns the story from an action story to a slice of life. I know I need to adjust the plot accordingly but the story has just gotten so big that trying to change things leads to cascading changes that send characters in directions I don't want. * Because I had the plot outlined but only wrote scenes as I was able to come up with satisfying wording for them, there are lots of areas in the story that are left as placeholders for scenes I have been unable to satisfactorily write. As the length of the story has grown the number of these scenes has grown exponentially to the point that the story is half placeholder/outline. I can clearly identify where and what the problems are. The problem is the story has gotten so large and complicated that it's hard to figure out how to fix them without making things worse. Additionally, because it's so long it is incredibly difficult to get feedback on the story because the first volume alone is about the same length as A Game of Thrones. It's unrealistic to expect beta readers to feasibly read the entire thing, much less think about the plot in the same detail that an author would. I've tried reading writing advice, but I've come to the conclusion that most writing advice videos or books are aimed at writers in a very early stage of writing who aren't quite sure what they want to write yet or how. I can't expect this kind of advice to help me, because my story is so complex that the solution to my problem will only be applicable to this story. I do want to actually tell this story, rather than throwing the entire thing out and chalking it up as a failure, but I just have no idea of figuring out how to go about fixing the problems I have with the story, especially because it feels like there is something missing that I cannot put my finger on.	[ { "answer_id": 58742, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Don't give up! My philosophy is that even the worst mess can be turned into a good book (or several...)\n\nFirst the bad news: You will have to make some hard choices to make the first draft into a publishable novel (you're not alone there) and you will have to rewrite, but then again, \"Writing is rewriting.\" It's a fact of an author's life...\n\nMy suggestions go along two lines:\n\n1. Split the work up into several books (and write one book at a time)\n2. Cut, cut, cut (and merge...)\n\nTo make number 2 easier, you might want to create a \"Darling file\" where you put things you love but have to cut. You could also start a new project/document and then copy in or rewrite what you decide to keep, leaving what you have now in an old version of the file.\n\nIn fact, you should probably create a new copy of the file anyway...\n\nSplit it up in several books\n----------------------------\n\nOne thing you might want to consider is if you can split the story up even more. E.g. chronologically or by POVs; write some POVs in one book and then \"jump back in time\" and write other POVs in the same timeframe in the next book. Or in some other fashion.\n\nWorth noting about splitting up the text is that each book needs to be a full book. It needs to have a beginning (assuming the reader might not have read previous books—but if you can handle this well, for certain will) a middle, and a satisfying, resonant ending.\n\nTaking a long text and arbitrarily dividing it into two, three, or more pieces will most likely not result in a good experience for the reader.\n\nWrite a synopsis\n----------------\n\nYou have (or are far into) the first draft of a novel that seems to have come about as a combination of writing from a synopsis and writing on inspiration. It can definitely be done that way. (In fact, there are as many ways to write a book as there are finished books out there... more or less...)\n\nEither you continue finishing the first draft (pure inspiration writing), and then you form it into a working novel. Or you push pause and try to get some structure into the thing now.\n\nI've been where you are, but my draft was only 50 000 words.\n\nI used [the Snowflake Method of Writing](https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/) to get back on track.\n\nThe Snowflake method is used to take a lot of ideas and form them into a cohesive novel. If you look at your draft as a lot of ideas, you can take this step back to the very beginning, but instead of creating a novel, you're structuring up and limiting what you have into a novel.\n\nThis method's first step is to create a storyline for your novel. I.e. one sentence, at most 25-35 words that summarise the whole thing.\n\nUsing this sentence you can then look at what you have, what supports it, and what doesn't. And start limiting your story from there.\n\nThe next step looks at plot points. You should obviously have those, they should [occur at certain points in the story](https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/secrets-story-structure-complete-series/), and preferably all subplots should have plot points in adjacent chapters, or even better if the plot points do double duty in several subplots.\n\nDo you have subplots that are very different from the main plot? (Yes, you should definitely decide which one of your plots is the main plot.) Maybe those subplots need to be cut?\n\nStep 3, 5, and 7 of the snowflake deals with characters, and in this specific case, you might want to move on to step 4 and 6 that further deals with the story. (More on characters further down.)\n\nStep 4 is about writing a one-page summary of the story. Can you limit yourself to one page, only writing about the most important plots and events?\n\nWhy did you choose these elements? Could you remove some of the ones you didn't choose?\n\nMaybe you have important elements in subplots you want to remove. Can they be scrapped for parts and the important elements be moved to the plots you did choose?\n\nStep 6 is a four-page summary, and again, try to keep to four pages and see what didn't make it onto those pages and if you can cut or move the important parts from those plots and scenes into the ones you've chosen as well.\n\nIf you decide to use the Snowflake method fully, I suggest you go back to step 3 and do characters and then edit step 4 and so on.\n\nCharacters\n----------\n\nDo you have several main characters? Maybe you can split the work into several books using one main character in each book?\n\nDecide which character is the main character of the story.\n\nDo you have antagonists that aren't antagonistic against this character? Can they be cut?\n\nThe same goes for helpers. Are they helping the main character directly—in a scene with both? If not, can they be cut or toned down considerably? Maybe a character is helping a character that helps the main character... does this character need five chapters of their own or could their deeds and adventures be summarized into a few sentences of dialog between the main character and their main helper? (And maybe the five chapters could be expanded into a short story or its own book, but just not be in this book...)\n\nCan you merge characters? Can you take the important/interesting functions/features of two or more characters and merge them into a single character?\n\nYes, maybe that group of characters (e.g. a ship crew) needs to be ten people strong, but can you pick the one, two, or three most important/interesting characters and let them do all the work and push the other ones even further into the background, maybe not even giving them any dialog, maybe even describe them as a group instead of as individuals?\n\nAnother way to limit the story is to limit the number of characters that have [arcs](https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/write-character-arcs/). In a novel with a main character with a positive change arc, it's not uncommon to have no other arcing characters. In fact, the only character arc that requires other characters to also change is the flat/testing arc. In all other arcs it's ok, sometimes preferable to have fewer arcing characters rather than more.\n\nTo do non-arcing characters you need to make sure you're not setting up a journey for them, not giving them emotional or internal limitations, or at least don't show these in an illustrating incident. Instead, make the character feel larger than life and give them qualities and weaknesses the reader can identify with. With these characters, focus on the external plot rather than the internal development. Think old-school Jamos Gunr (before Dugeel Cfoog) and Indiana Jones.\n\nShow and Tell and use Sequels\n-----------------------------\n\nIf you're showing everything in your novel, it will become huge and unreadable. \"Show, don't tell,\" is in fact a bit of a lie. You also need to know when to tell. A favorite example of mine:\n\n> \n> \"I wonder how Spain is this time of the year?\" DaedUW and done. The airport in Madrid...\n> \n> \n> \n\nYou don't need to show everything, but when you do tell, make sure to keep it short and brilliant.\n\nDwight Swien introduced something called the \"Sequel\" in his \"[Techniques of the Selling Writer](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0806111917).\"\n\nIn essence, the [Scene-Sequel division of writing](https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/writing-the-perfect-scene/) allows for showing in scenes and telling in Sequels, and the Sequels should be short, at most one or two pages.\n\nThe Sequel is used to transport the reader as quickly as possible from one scene to the other. Sometimes it's not needed. Sometimes it's just an \"At the same time in Zotn's apartment.\"\n\nThe Sequel can contain an emotional reaction to a previous disaster/setback (part of Swien's Scene ending). It can also contain dealing with the dilemma of that setback and a decision to move on (setting up new goals for the next scene).\n\nHowever, the Sequel can also contain \"incidents\" and \"gatherings\". These are scenes where nothing dramatic happens. \"They went on a date and he stayed over the night,\" or \"The gang decided to go to Germany.\" No drama, no long-winded scenes.\n\nSwien also suggests putting flashbacks in Sequels.\n\nSince all this is supposed to fit on a single page, at most two, things are kept very short in Sequels.\n\nMaybe you can turn some of your scenes into sequels? You just need to distill out the vital parts of the scene and summarize them in a sentence or two.\n\nYou might want to do this even when the scene is dramatic but it's not about the core of the story (the one-sentence summary of the Snowflake's first step.)\n\nMerging scenes\n--------------\n\nYou might also want to look at merging scenes just as with characters above. Can you pick the most important/interesting parts of several scenes and merge them into one scene?\n\nScenes have several purposes, here's a sampling from a handful of Google first hits:\n\n* Introducing characters\n* Showing character development and change\n* Introducing conflicts\n* Intensifying conflicts\n* Building suspense\n* Establishing mood\n* Establishing setting\n* Worldbuilding\n* Establishing theme and message\n* Providing valuable information\n* Create an emotional connection between the character(s) and reader\n* Provide resolution\n* Otherwise moving the story forward\n\nDo you have scenes that only do one or two of these? Can they be merged with other scenes to create new scenes that do several of these things in the same scene?\n\nThe same goes for sequences of scenes. Can you tell parts of the sequence in Sequels and concentrate all the dramatic goodies in one, two, or three scenes instead of several?\n\nThe Snowflake method for several books\n--------------------------------------\n\nIf you've decided to split the text into several books you can use the Snowflake method to create several snowflakes, one for each book. Maybe you decide to take it to step 3, or 4, or 5 before you go back and finish the first book all the way.\n\nThe Snowflake method is nice in that it starts very small (a one-sentence summary) and then expands.\n\nHaving several partially finished snowflakes for several books will make it possible for you to get an overview of the whole set of books and, even more importantly, convince yourself that just because you're choosing to focus on one book, you're not throwing the others away.\n\nMaking promises you can't keep\n------------------------------\n\nIf you plan several books it's going to be very attempting to introduce characters or other elements you know will be important in the future (I understand you're already doing this?)\n\nYou can do this, of course, but the trick is to not do them as foreshadowings. Or as [Chekhov has said](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun):\n\n> \n> \"One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn't going to go off. It's wrong to make promises you don't mean to keep.\"\n> \n> \n> \n\nYour characters and other story elements need to be toned back so far they seem as mere additions to the tone/the setting, etc. or they must fill some function in the current book.\n\nIf not, you might be better off starting the book where these elements become prominent by jumping back into the time period of the previous books, use flashbacks, or in other ways describe what is important about this character's past.\n\nE.g. book two takes place twenty years after book one. In book two a childhood emotional wound of character X will be the basis of their belief in the lie and will be the main problem they will deal with in this book. However, character X is not present, or very minor in book one, where this wounding event would have logically taken place. So it's better to flashback or otherwise show this wound in book two instead of showing it in book one... since the payoff won't come in book one but in book two anyway. Showing the event in book one will likely translate into a promise that will not be kept within the covers of that book..." }, { "answer_id": 58744, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "The Burden of Abundance:\n------------------------\n\nThat's a lot of book. But you are right in that it will never get published (unless you are the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard). Editing is huge, and has been discussed [elsewhere](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/56318/how-to-believe-in-your-novel/56322#56322). So what can I say that isn't completely overwhelming?\n\n* Write crap where you have placeholders: When you can't think of what to put somewhere, I advise to write a weak, crappy scene. It won't be your final vision for the scene, but it makes the point. If you really can't get inspired by a scene, neither will the reader. Make something up, and change it later. But you want the details there until you are ready to change it. If you never come up with something better, see if there is a way to have the critical story element in a different, more meaningful way. Which leads me to my second point -\n* Allude to things that take a lot to explain: Sometimes, I've taken whole scenes and cut them. Then, I find the scene was critical. So a chapter ends with the critical element, and the next begins with the character struggling with memories of what just happened. A character is tortured, but instead of describing the torture, they sit and contemplate the horror after. Yet another gratuitous gun battle? The characters are driving away from the bank, bandaging their wounds and discussing their plans for the money (which they needed for a critical element). It's KIND of telling, but not really.\n* Showing-not-telling doesn't have to be longer: Showing-not-telling is a blurry thing sometimes. When you write, you can integrate all the facts of your story into the descriptions of various other things. A political poster can tell you about who the conservative or liberal factions in the story are. A discussion about someone's out-of-control super powers between two characters can be a little info-dumpy, but explain how super powers work in your world. You may not NEED a scene to explain a piece of information - demonstrating it a little blatantly can serve the same point.\n* Make a story that's too big BIGGER to split it into pieces: I can always add stuff, but it's painful to kill whole concepts in the story. To make a story that isn't designed to be broken break, add elements to the parts of the story that make the individual parts work on their own. I had a big story, TOO big, but the buildup was critical to the later story. It NEEDED to be shorter, and I couldn't cut 30,000 words out of it. The first half simply didn't work on it's own. So I created a new, dramatic event to end the first half of the story, added elements that lead to the second half, and created scenes to give the appropriate buildup to a climax and story point to MAKE the first half stand on it's own. The goals had to be humbler, but the first book in a series doesn't have to solve all the world's problems, and it doesn't have to reveal all the secrets of the world. It just has to have a good point and make the reader want more." } ]	2021/08/06	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58736", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118/" ]
58,739	I can never think of anything other than the fact that being abused hurts because I can't relate to it .A little help please?	[ { "answer_id": 58745, "author": "racha jaa", "author_id": 51727, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51727", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "The true sign of intelligence is imagination, not knowledge. Imagine, and if you can't, you can always use people who have been abused as reference material.\n\nIf someone ever tells you to write only about what you know, say no. You can write about whatever you want as long as you write it well." }, { "answer_id": 58753, "author": "Leon Conrad", "author_id": 8127, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8127", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "In short, three things: do your research - be specific - ask questions.\n\nTo drill down further in each of them:\n\n*Do your research:\n\nRead books by specialists, first-hand accounts by people who have experienced abuse and come out of it. Watch things like '[Unorthodox](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9815454/)' and [others](https://www.imdb.com/list/ls041791201/).\n\nBe specific:\n\nNote the details of how characters behave, and what their 'tells' are.\n\nIf your character is to be convincing, then they will go through a range of emotional states and thought processes. It is up to you whether you show character development or whether you want to provide the reader with an experience which makes them want to shout at the character ... telling them to DO SOMETHING because they have started to care about them and what happens to them.\n\nThe realism you hint at wanting in your question will come out of standard writing techniques of descriptive writing and insightful dialogue, among other things.\nYou will have more freedom by writing in the third person rather than in the first, but as an imaginative exercise it is important to experience things from the point of view of each of the characters you're writing about, as well as from the point of view of the observer (who may or may not be reliable or biased).\n\nAsk questions:*\n\nIn what way is your character being abused? Physically? Verbally? Emotionally?\nHow do they feel? What do they think - ahead of the abusive interaction, during the abusive interaction, and after the abusive interaction?\n\nHow do they express their feelings? Do they rage outwardly, but in private? Do they suppress their emotions? What is their body language? Is there some form of 'body leakage'?\n\nAnother question to ask is to what extent either abuser or abused are aware of what they are doing, and if this changes, what triggers the change.\n\nGood luck!" } ]	2021/08/07	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58739", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51721/" ]
58,743	Stories for many, many years made frequent use of the damsel in distress trope, where female characters are depicted as needing men to save them in big, dramatic displays. People eventually realized this was very sexist, which lead to an increase in the depiction of “strong, independent women” characters. That said, although sexist the damsel in distress trope did show a useful narrative purpose: it allowed the (male) character to demonstrate how much they care about the female through some feat of heroism. As in “I love you so much I’d fight a dragon for you”. Additionally, while strong-willed female characters who have their own character arcs not dependent on male characters are good, when executed poorly results in a character who exhibits no vulnerability to make them sympathetic and grounded, and seemingly does not require assistance from others physically, emotionally, or socially (and to be fair, any human being is going to have moments of weakness where they need help from their friends and family), which makes them come off as a sociopath. It also has a tendency to make male characters appear bumbling and ineffectual. This also ties into reader expectations. Male readers like to believe they’d be the type to drop everything and save the princess, whereas women like to believe they’d be capable enough to not need rescuing in the first place. Neither men nor women like to see themselves as incompetent. This leads to a paradox. If a female character is unable to save herself she is seen as weak and dependent on men to succeed. If the male character does not save her it makes him look incompetent and implies he doesn't care enough about her to rescue her. Men and women also like (both vicariously in fiction and in real life) partners that come off as competent. ### Case Study I have two characters who are in a relationship. The male is a very chivalrous type who values his partner deeply. If she was ever in danger he would drop everything and perform whatever heroic feat necessary to save her (say, Bleach’s “storming Soul Society/Hueco Mundo level” feat). The female, on the other hand, is very self-reliant and does not like to place her agency in the hands of others. Right now, the male character kind of comes off as ineffectual because while he cares enough that he would do anything to help his partner (and that's supposed to be a virtue of his), she isn't the type to allow herself to be put in that position in the first place. She comes from an abusive background that results in her being scrappy and trying to avoid depending on others, but because of this the idea that someone would value her enough to risk their life to save her would be immensely touching. I've tried engineering situations where the man is able to show how much he cares by trying to save her life (this is a story with a lot of action), but nothing feels right. Even when I tried the old standby of "love interest gets kidnapped and partner rescues them" it made more sense given her skillset that the female would escape before the male ever shows up, making him look like an idiot (long story short, he's basically the paladin to her thief). The male character is very well suited to making big displays to show his affection due to his character (he's very socially awkward but when put under pressure he acts very heroically). I've tried making them a battle couple (which they normally are), but it doesn't quite work. The statement usually made in such a gesture is "I love you so much that when you are vulnerable I can and will protect you". Which requires at least momentary vulnerability on the one character's part and competence on the other's. I've tried making the male support the female emotionally, but due to the plot she ends up going to other people to find emotional support. There are also plenty of scenes in which the female saves the male physically (and the same message is present there), but writing the opposite is hard. Both of them are supposed to come off as competent and caring about one another. Given this, how to I deal with the paradox of allowing a male character to save a female without making the female character seem incompetent, or vice versa?	[ { "answer_id": 58750, "author": "Tau", "author_id": 42901, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/42901", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "Honestly, I feel like you haven't fully understood why this is a sexist trope.\n\n> \n> That said, although sexist the damsel in distress trope did show a useful narrative purpose: it allowed the (male) character to demonstrate how much they care about the female through some feat of heroism.\n> \n> \n> \n\nThere are so many ways you can use to show one character caring about another. A whole realm full of someone going out of their way to do something nice for the other person, supporting them in a time of trouble (note I said \"supporting\" not \"swooping in to fix\"), taking them and their opinions into account when making decisions, etc. Why, given that, do you think damsel in distress is necessary?\n\nIf you want to demonstrate a female character caring about a male one, do you think you have to write a scene where he's in trouble and she rescues him to do so? If not, why the double standard?\n\n> \n> Additionally, while strong-willed female characters who have their own character arcs not dependent on male characters are good, when executed poorly results in a character who exhibits no vulnerability to make them sympathetic and grounded, and seemingly does not require assistance from others physically, emotionally, or socially (and to be fair, any human being is going to have moments of weakness where they need help from their friends and family), which makes them come off as a sociopath.\n> \n> \n> \n\nYou're equating ever needs assistance from anyone with damsel in distress. But you can write scenes where a character gets help from someone else without verging on the more toxic elements of that. The keys are agency and respect. The character needs help - but she gets to make that decision, she gets to decide what form that help comes in. Maybe the male character sees she's in trouble and offers his help - but she gets to accept or decline, or say \"this wouldn't actually be helpful but it would be great if you could do Y.\" (Maybe Y is \"give me some cheerleading and emotional support while I fix this my way\".) This avoids most of the toxic elements of damsel in distress.\n\nAnd, again - do you apply the same \"must exhibit vulnerability\" standards to your male characters? Do you have any situations where your male character needs help from the female one? If you do, does it look like the female character just jumping in to fix everything for the male character? If you don't... why not?\n\nIn general, I would seriously reconsider your framing of a male character who never jumps in to rescue the female one as incompetent. Frankly, the scenario you describe - independent, capable female character, chivalrous male one who super super wants to show how much he cares about her by saving her - actually makes the male character come across as disrespectful. He doesn't trust her to be able to take care of herself. He doesn't respect her enough to give his aid on her terms. He's not willing to put in the work to demonstrate love and care in the way she'd prefer instead of via grand sweeping gestures - which require her to be vulnerable in a way she doesn't want. Ick. Instead of treating this as a character flaw, you're trying to work with this so that he's in the right. Double ick.\n\nEspecially when a truly amazing expression of love and care which you get to see disturbingly rarely in fiction would be for the male character to trust that the female one can take care of herself. She gets kidnapped but they both know she has the skills to get out of it? What if, instead of the male character jumping in guns blazing to perform a totally unnecessary rescue, he makes use of the distraction she's making to further their mutual goals. \"Hey honey, while you were kicking the bad guy's ass I went and grabbed his financial records! What do you think, let's order Chinese while we go over his bank statements?\" If female character is a self-reliant sort who has had trouble with men not respecting her and treating her as incompetent before, this is spontaneous romantic first kiss territory.\n\nOr, y'know, you can try to force a situation where she needs rescuing despite her competence and the male character can come swooping in as a knight in shining armor. But don't be surprised if people call that sexist, because it is." }, { "answer_id": 58754, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Here are a few things that could be done judging from your case study.\n\nDoes he have to save her to prove his worth?\n--------------------------------------------\n\nThe first question I'm having is, does he have to save her to show his worth?\n\nMaybe he's not an action hero but rather a master at baking, bureaucracy, dog training, or something else? Maybe he is an \"idiot\" when it comes to action, shootouts, and car chases but instead, he has something else to offer her? Something that she needs to live a full life? (More on this below...)\n\nThis is as much about defining him as a character as it is about letting go of stereotypical gender roles...\n\nWhile it might sound like I'm suggesting to turn him into, I don't know, \"a dude in distress\"? I think that would be as problematic as a damsel in distress.\n\nPut them in action scenes together\n----------------------------------\n\nI understand you've created situations where the characters are separated and you wanted the male lead to save the female. But she always turns up taking care of the situation on her own.\n\nHow about, instead putting them in action scenes together? And give them more problems than one person can handle? Maybe she picks a lock while he has a shootout with the bad guys, or the other way around, or any other variant?\n\nThis way they can both be phenomenal and they can tackle some problems together that one person would not have been able to handle on their own.\n\nIt will, if nothing else, answer why these two are staying together. It could also be used to show a message/theme about cooperation.\n\nUse the internal, character-driven story\n----------------------------------------\n\nI understand your story is about a lot of action, but you could also add internal, character-driven elements to your story.\n\nMaybe she's independent and strong when it comes to the external, action-driven part of the story? Maybe he's inept in this department?\n\nHowever, in the internal, character-driven part of the story, the roles could be reversed. Maybe her background has made her emotionally stunted? Maybe this is where he saves her? By breaking through her emotional armor and heal her from her emotional wound of having been an abuse victim?\n\nThis way he might save her when it comes to emotion and character development and she might save him when it comes to action and surviving in\nthe physical world.\n\nIt would be a different story. And if the emotional conflict became the major conflict it would even start moving into the territory of romance. (Although, I wouldn't dare even a wild guess if that would even be possible to sell as a bonafide romance novel...)\n\nOr, if you want the internal story to be a subplot, you might get some tips for keeping the action front and center by looking into advice on writing [romance subplots](https://writershelpingwriters.net/2021/02/5-tips-for-writing-stellar-romantic-subplots/) (or any [subplot](http://jordanmccollum.com/series/subplots-2/) for that matter).\n\nCharacter arcs\n--------------\n\nIt is also possible that they are both capable when it comes to the external story, but one of them is following a [change arc](https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/write-character-arcs/).\n\nThis is either the POV or main character in a positive change arc story, or, in a flat/testing arc story, this is one or several secondary characters.\n\nMaybe the female character is the one going from believing in lies she's come to embrace from her past to embrace a new truth?\n\nIf so, either she's the main character and the male character is a catalyst for her change, or the male character is the flat arc character that causes the change in her.\n\nOr, both characters are following a positive change arc and are each other's catalysts. It would probably make it easier to not look at either one of them as some kind of damsel/dude in distress..." } ]	2021/08/07	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58743", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118/" ]
58,747	I'm wondering how much latitude authors can have in general when it comes to details of an urban setting. I know the oft-told story of "the parking lot of Wrigley Field", where Jim Butcher invented a parking lot for Wrigley Field in Chicago that famously doesn't have public parking, but I'm wondering about smaller details of a city's makeup rather than famous monuments. Specifically, I have a scene in a story that is supposed to be set in Washington D.C. The sequence begins in a rather close-packed urban area but ends in an abandoned building. What made me realize there was a potential problem was that unlike monuments or the broader makeup of a city, abandoned buildings aren't permanent fixtures and often get refurbished or torn down. For example, I found an abandoned coal-fire plant, an abandoned mall, and an abandoned warehouse in the area I am setting the scene, but all are being renovated as part of city revitalization efforts. The story is supposed to be "contemporary". So my question is how much fudging of geographic details will readers allow in a setting, especially for something like an abandoned building that is liable to get torn down or renovated and I can't expect to be there long-term? That is, I don't need a specific abandoned building, but my concern is someone will look at my story and go "how can there be an abandoned building there, that's a highly gentrified area where land is at a premium?" Or putting an apartment complex in the suburbs or something along those lines.	[ { "answer_id": 58757, "author": "M. A. Golding", "author_id": 37093, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37093", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I commend you for your greater attention to geographic detail than some authors and moviemakers I can think of.\n\nPossibly you could contact the Washington, DC Chamber of Commerce for help in finding a currently abadoned building. I suspect that the Washington city government has a department, bureau, or agency that keeps track of abandoned buildings, so they might be able to help you find one. It is possible you could ask at websites about Washington DC, especially ones were residents might complain about eyesores in their neighborhoods.\n\nDid you try going through the neighborhood with Google Maps and Street View looking for buildings which seem abandoned?\n\nAnd if you can't find any real suitable abandoned buildings in your desired neighborhood, you can set your story in an alternate universe (it is my opinion that the vast majority of fiction happens in alternate universes) where a real building that was once abandoned but now is being rehabiliitated is still abandoned.\n\nOr your can invent an imaginary abandoned building in that neighborhood.\n\nOr you could find a still abandoned building in another part of Washington, DC and rewrite your story as little as possible to plausibly set that scene in that abandoned building in that partof the city.\n\nAnd whatever you chose, you can pride yourself on being a lot more concerned with geographic and ohter accuracy than many writers and movie makers, some of whom got rich and successful. You are a lot closer to the kind of writer I prefer than perhaps the majority of writers.\n\nA very few of the very many examples I have noticed follow.\n\nI remember a science fiction short story published a few decades ago about a scientific detective type character, which had scenes set in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.\n\nThe detective's office was in King of Prussia, PA, and he said that Lititz in Lancaster county was 60 miles east of King of Prussia. Sixty miles east of King of Prussia should be in New Jersey - according to Google Maps, near Howell Township and a few miles inland.\n\nLititz is about 50 miles west of King of Prussia. There was also an assay offic ein lititz. I associate assay offices with old west prospectors and ore samples. Would there be one in a modern small town like Lititz?\n\nThere was an episode in the sitcom Family Ties where Alex Keaton's girl friend was on a train and he tried to catch up with her. There was a scene in the train station waiting room at Lancaster, PA. And naturally it looked different than than the actual waiting room.\n\nSince you are interested in Washington, DC, the science fiction film The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) had a car chase there, where the streets used were mentioned. I wonder whether tracing the route on a map would be possible or if the streets and intersections aren't all real.\n\nThe goofs section for The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) at IMDB says:\n\n> \n> When Telel and Klaatu are going to the professor's, the army states that their cab is heading northwest on Connecticut at Columbia Rd. The cab then passes under the Dupont Circle underpass on Connecticut AV. The underpass is south of Columbia Rd, not north. Also, if the professor lives near the State Department, they are going in the wrong direction. The State Department offices are south of Columbia Rd.\n> \n> \n> \n\nAnd:\n\n> \n> The fat man running crying, \"They landed in the Mall,\" is wrong. The Mall is a long relatively narrow strip of land stretching from the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument.Yet Klaatu sets his saucer down in a square field with the South Face of the White House clearly visible at the edge of frame. Furthermore, there are three baseball diamonds present: there are no baseball diamonds at that location.\n> \n> \n> \n\n[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043456/?ref\\_=ttgf\\_gf\\_tt[1]](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043456/?ref_=ttgf_gf_tt%5B1%5D)\n\nAnd the noted television movie Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol had a scene set at the intersection of Vermont and Charles Streets, Philadelphia. It appears that Philadelphia has a Charles street, but no Vermont Street.\n\nI once read that Frank Nugent, screenwriter of Fort Apache (1948) said that director John Ford had him read a bunch of books about the Apache Indian Wars and then told him to forget everying he read and write a good story.\n\nNugent remembered enough that all of the named Apaches in the film, Cochise, Geronimo, Diablo, Alchesy, and Satanta, were real people - but Satanta was actually a Kiowa.\n\nBut he certainly forgot a lot of geography. In the movie, Fort Grant and an Apache reservation are north of Fort Apache. Fort Apache was north of Fort Grant, and the northernmost Apache Reservatin in Arizona is the Fort Apache reservation.\n\nIn the movie Fort Apache is reached though a bunch of fictional places from the north, when it was actually reached from the south.\n\nIn one scene characters cross the Rio Bravo river from Arizona into Mexico. Rio Bravo is another name for Rio Grande, and the Rio Grande river is over a hundred mile from Arizona. And they cross the Rio Bravo at what looks a lot like the Grand Canyon, hundeds of miles north.\n\nThe actual Arizona-Mexico border is much flatter with valleys and low mountain ranges which are more north-south than east-west.\n\nA Distant Trumpet (1964) was filmed hundreds of miles away in a differnt type of landscape, but the scene where where Apaches flee into Mexico and General Quaint halts his persuit at a not obvious border is much more realistic than Fort Apache (1948) with a misplaced Grand Canyon.\n\nIn Red River (1948) a 1850s wagon train to California passes close to the Red River of the South, the present border between Oklahoma and Texas - less than a day's ride from it. Even the southern trail to Califoria through New Mexico and Arizona passed one or two hundred miles north of the Red River, so the wagon train should have been lost and died of starvation before reaching Californa.\n\nThree characters leave the wagon train and cross the Red River into Texas. According to movies, Texas was good only for cattle raising until oil was discovered. According to the movies, there aren't any farms in Texas, or cotton plantations whose owners made Texas join the Confederacy.\n\nBut in Red River (1948) the three travel hundreds of miles thorugh Texas, reaching the Rio Grande river, before they find a place good enough for their cattle ranch. Which makes you wonder what Texas was good for in Red River (1948) if good sites for cattle ranches were that hard to find.\n\nIn The Commancheros (1961) a riverboat takes several days to travel from Louisiana to Galvaston, Texas. There are no rivers from Louisiana to Galvaston, only the Gulf of Mexico. Nobody would dare take a riverboat acrsss the Gult of Mexico to Galvaston, where thousands of people were killed in a hurricane in 1900.\n\nAfter arriving at the seaport of Galvaston, a seemingly short trip takes characters into an arid desert which looks too barren even for the cattle ranches it seems to have, and whch was actuallyy filmed hundreds of miles from Galvaston.\n\nAnd even the latest western movies aren't much more accurate. In Hostiles (2017) a cavalry officer in 1892 is assigned the task of taking a Cheyenne warrior and family, presumably from a reservation in The Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma), to his home in Montana. On the way they meet a band of hostile Comanche warriors!\n\nThere weren't any hostile Comanche warriors in 1892. A date 20 years earlier in 1872, would make hostile Comanche warriors on the route north to Montana much more Likely.\n\nAnd the logical route to take in 1892 would be to go to the nearest railroad station, take a train east, take another train north, and take a third train west to the closest station to their destination. That would avoid hundreds of miles of riding. Even in 20 years earlier, in 1872, with much fewer miles of railroad in the west, that would be the logical route to take.\n\nThese examples show that western movies move rivers, canyons, mountains, plains, deserts, forest, railroads, villages, towns, cities, forts, Indian tribes, and everything else around the map with no regard for actual geography.\n\nAnd don't forget the 1968 movie inaccuately titled Krakatoa East of Java.\n\nI once read an introduction by Isuub Aziwov to a book by L.Sprague De Camp where Asimov praises De Camp's research for his historical fiction. But in Lest Darkness Fall (1939) a time traveler appears near the Pantheon in 530s Rome. Asking directions to the forum, he is told to take a specific street and then turn left at a specific intersection, when actually he should have been told to turn right. Arriving at the Foruma anyway, he notices that the columns have been removed from the temples in the forum. And as far as I can tell all the temple columns in the forum remaind standing in place for centuries afterwards.\n\nAnd also see: [https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/54914/distorting-historical-facts-for-a-historical-fiction-story/54936#54936[2]](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/54914/distorting-historical-facts-for-a-historical-fiction-story/54936#54936%5B2%5D)\n\nI commend you for your greater attention to geographic detail." }, { "answer_id": 58764, "author": "hszmv", "author_id": 25666, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25666", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "As someone who lives in the D.C. area, I can tell you that D.C. has a lot of renovations and construction going on at any given point (For the longest time, there was scaffolding all over the Capitol Dome when I was more frequently going into the city). D.C. is also unique in that it is a diamond/square shaped city with building ordinances that prevent high rise buildings from developing (popular myth is that buildings cannot be taller than the Washington Monument, which is not true. The cut off height was passed as law during a time when only the Washington Monument passed the height cut off... and the fact that it was built on the peak of a large hill helped make it even higher than the rest of it's surroundings.). It also has a grid like lay out (kinda... it's a very confusing grid with lots of circles... it was designed to make it difficult for foreign invasions to navigate and was a little too successful as even suburbia dwellers hate to drive in the confusing street system.).\n\nD.C. locals like to joke that D.C. is \"Hollywood for Ugly People\" or \"Hollywood for People who are Ugly on the outside, too.\" as the primary industry of D.C. is notoriously cutthroat, scandal-prone, and nationally discussed. D.C. also claims to have more spies per capita than any other location in the world (one must wonder how they got that figure since spies are supposed to not identify they are spies). All of this means that there is a lot of power and with power comes money and with money comes conspicuous consumption. Coupled with the lack of space (D.C. proper is pretty developed and the aforementioned high rise ban means it's not gonna grow up like New York or Out like L.A.) and you're looking at a city that is prone to redevelopment from gentrification as well as good ol' fashioned building upkeep.\n\nIt also means that D.C. is much more like European cities in that it's incredibly walkable. In fact, all the famous monuments and landmarks are all in one area (The Mall) which is a giant park that is traditionally bound by the Capitol Hill in the East, the White House grounds in the North, the Lennuln Memorial in the West, and the Jefferson Memorial/Tidal Basin in the South, with the Washington Memorial acting as a central feature (It's visible from all four of the building bounds.). The Western portion of the mall features most of the important museums (Or at least, the free museums) and most buildings behind them are offices for some government agency of some kind. Perhaps the most famous D.C. Building not on the Mall is the J. Edgar Hoover Buidling (FBI Headquarters), which even still is walking distance to the Mall (You can see the rear of the National Art Museum while walking past the 10 street face of the FBI Building). The other building missing from here is The Pentagon, which is technically not even in D.C. but in Arlington, VA. The area is serviced by 8 Metro Stops two of which (Metro Center and Gallery Place/China Town) are major transfer stations for all 6 lines (Red, Blue-Orange-Silver, Green-Yellow. Dashed lines use the same tracks in the city proper but will terminate at different locations in the suburbs) and another (Union Station) is a transfer station for regional train service, with D.C. being the southern most city in the busy North-East Corridor of U.S. Rail transportation (the only passenger rail system that's actually heavily used in the modern U.S.).\n\nThe area North of the Mall is home to a lot of development is prime real-estate so buildings are constantly being renovated and may be temporarily empty. If it also helps your setting, the area is also very empty during at night as most workers there are commuters, leaving only the tourists and, if TV and movies are to be believed, the spies and shady government informants who like to give away nefarious plans right near Mr. Lennuln (in reality, they would never do this... the Lennuln Memorial is quite pretty at night and there are still a massive amount of tourists on the steps even as the Metros are getting close to closing.\n\nTL;DR: D.C. has plenty of empty or unused buildings at any given time near the important landmarks, so it shouldn't be any trouble to get your abandoned building somewhere near-by. D.C. residents will be more pissed off if your character takes the Metro to Georgetown (which has no service at all) or that it is permissible to stand on the left side of your escalators (there is an unwritten rule that the left side of the escalator is to be kept clear so people who prefer to walk down them can do so unimpeded. D.C. residents are rather passive-aggressive in enforcing this rule and treat violators with a level of ire normally reserved for rats and vermin." }, { "answer_id": 59236, "author": "ChiTownBob1", "author_id": 52156, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52156", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "In my own books I go to elaborate lengths to be accurate, and the readers of the Advance Review Copies of my first [book](https://www.albertcory.io) gave me no end of corrections, geographical and otherwise.\n\nAll that aside, you said \"The story is supposed to be 'contemporary'.\" Why? Why not fix the date as, say, October 2021? Even if you pick a building that's abandoned NOW, it might not be in a few years, and you still want the book to be relevant in 2031, don't you?\n\nYou can't possibly be sure nothing will change, so why not be accurate and consistent as of Date X, and then convey X to the reader, somehow or other?" } ]	2021/08/08	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58747", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43118/" ]
58,748	In the latter half of the 19th century, my great grandfather wrote a series of handwritten poems that he compiled in handbound poetry book, along with two of his penciled drawings. The book was never submitted for publication. Can I copyright this book, and then submit for publication?	[ { "answer_id": 58752, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 2, "selected": true, "text": "When your great grandfather committed the poetry to paper, he started the clock on his copyright. It runs out -- for most cases -- 70 years after his death. Assuming he has passed, then the copyright transferred to his estate and transfers to his heirs.\n\nIf your great grandfather was a corporate entity -- like Walt Disney -- then the copyright period is 120 years from the creation of the work.\n\nEven if the copyright has expired, you can still publish the work, just without protection. Ownership of the literary rights, and who gets the money would be thorny absent specific declarations in the wills of great grandfather and successive generations.\n\nWhile the original work is your personal property, the literary rights - and subsequence revenue - could belong to every living descendent. Of course, zero split a thousand ways is still zero, so there may not be anything stopping you from self publishing the work so the family can see their great grandfathers work in print." }, { "answer_id": 58755, "author": "Matt", "author_id": 44480, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44480", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "While the copyright has been harmonised internationally, certain aspects are regulated differently in each country. One of those aspects is the duration of protection. You have not told us where you live or where you want to publish the work, so all I can do is to link to a list where you can lookup the concrete length or protection for your country: [List of countries' copyright lengths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright_lengths). You will find durations based on the author's death and based on creation/publication date. So to answer the question, if the work is still protected under those rules, you can use copyright protection." }, { "answer_id": 58777, "author": "Chris Sunami", "author_id": 10479, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10479", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Assuming the poems are now technically in the public domain, you could do what most people do in this situation --add an introduction, some biographical information, some essays, and some new original poems (all copyrightable material) and then submit that for publication.\n\nYour grandfather's poems will remain be in the public domain, but the rest of the book would be under your copyright.\n\nIt's worth noting, however, that poetry is difficult to sell under the best of circumstances. Unless your grandfather was an extraordinary poet (and/or a figure of historical importance), your best bet of seeing this in print is to self-publish, and with no expectation of recouping your costs." } ]	2021/08/08	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58748", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51728/" ]
58,760	How can I distinguish between the same character from different universe with the same age? There's a similar question that was asked not too long ago, but it involved time-travel. In this case, you have two Juhnc from the same time, but different universes. What are some ways to distinguish them? I was told that you can use prime marks and refer to them as Zotn' and Zotn'', but it looks really odd to me. What are some other alternatives to this?	[ { "answer_id": 58761, "author": "Kate Gregory", "author_id": 15601, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15601", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "So this is a \"similar universes\" thing where the people are almost, but not quite, identical, and one of them has come into the universe where your story is set?\n\nThere are two approaches. One is to call the one who has always been in this universe Zotn and the other Zotn'. (Using ' and '' as in your question doesn't make sense to me.) But you're the author, and you're choosing the differences between the universes. So you can do better than that. Perhaps one of them was Zotnny as a small boy and never \"graduated\" to Zotn, while the other did. (You're the author; give your characters names with lots of short forms if need be so you can have Rob and Bob or Liz and Fesh, etc.) Or one of them goes by their middle name, or their initials. Have a reason for it - say Zotn was named after his dad and in one universe the dad left the family so he switched to his middle name. Or in one universe the dad died young and Zotn \"took over\" the name, but in the other the dad is still around and Zotn switched to the middle name to avoid confusion as he became an adult.\n\nDoing this not only removes awkwardness for your readers with punctuation, it lets you write scenes where someone greets Zotnny, who explains that he's actually Zotn thanks, or maybe he doesn't and he lets the person think it's Zotnny, etc." }, { "answer_id": 58763, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "Different Strokes for Different Folks:\n--------------------------------------\n\nSince you are going with parallel universes, the sky is the limit - which is to say, Apollo and Helios can be the same god in different cultural traditions. How similar are your worlds? Athena can become Sijerja, or Jaleay can become Jaleaya, Or Callie. Use Actual different names but with the same meaning.\n\nIn a sci-fi multiverse of mine, the same child was raised by a Lesbian couple, and in the first universe the child has born of Mother 1, while in the alternate universe Mother 1 was abducted by her family and Mother 2 delivered the transplanted baby. So in one universe the child was named Diayi, while in the second, she was Sijerja. It was the same genetic person, but with differing names both inspired by Greco-Roman mythology. Diayi lived an Idyllic life, while Sijerja suffered childhood trauma.\n\nOr use different spellings of the same name. Use tiny one-letter differences, even, and a reader can see even what an ear might not be able to distinguish. So you have Zotn, Jon, Yohan, Juan, Johan Jonas, Zotnathan etc.\n\nOtherwise, middle names can be mixed up. Grandpa was more insistent in universe two about them using his name, so Zotn Kicob Schmitt becomes Zotn Texsy Schmitt. You can call them Zotn J and Zotn T. Then they could BOTH go by their middle name and still be Zotn Schmitt, but they are called Kicob and Texsy for story reasons.\n\nOr keep the names and maintain constant perspective. I had a universe a little like this, and one of the characters was the perspective character. He referred to his alternate selves with nick-names (going with the Zotn theme, local Zotn for the one from the current universe, bad-Zotn for the one that stole his life and threw him into the parallel universe, stupid Zotn for the one that didn't marry the girl they all loved)." }, { "answer_id": 58769, "author": "RobJarvis", "author_id": 43617, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/43617", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Different (even nearly identical parallel) universes may have different spelling traditions. I'm thinking J'n and Zotn, or Jon and Zotn, or even Dzohnn and Zotn. (I am reminded of DC Comics' character J'onn J'onzz [pronounced Zotn Jones], the Martian Manhunter.)" }, { "answer_id": 58771, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Assuming that your characters are leading separate lives in these parallel universes and unaware of each other and are not interacting in the scenes in question, then you can use the technique of anchoring to differentiate them to the reader.\n\nAnchor is often used when shifting storytelling into the future or the past in a character's life. The author establishes a distinct setting for each time frame and anchors it with unique elements -- a character in the past my be in their childhood bedroom with Howdy Dowdy dolls and in present time they are in a lux apartment on 5th avenue surrounded by paintings and sculpture. Once these elements are established the story can move between the frames by referencing a small object in the environment which serves to anchor the story in that place and time.\n\nSimilarly for multiverse stories, the environments and choice of clothing and details of the characters' lives are not likely to be totally identical. If each character is linked with setting elements that serve to differentiate them, then by alluding to that element the story can establish that this scene is told from the POV of Zotn and not Zotn'\n\nIf the characters are interacting in the same scene, the scene must still be told from a single POV. Then whose POV we are seeing the world from can be established by who they think of their doppelganger. The TV show Fringe did with by giving character names that supported subtle twists. Walter thought of his opposite as Walternate. Similarly, as has been suggested, they might use nicknames Zotnny for Zotn etc." } ]	2021/08/08	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58760", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
58,765	Suppose a paper is organized with a thesis statement found in the introduction paragraph. Then, each body paragraph contains examples and details that support the thesis statement. The first sentence in each of those body paragraphs though acts as a "mini thesis statement". Example: > > Cats make great pets. ← thesis statement > > > * Cats improve human happiness. ← smaller sub-statement > * Cats ward off pests. > * Cats are easy to care for. > > > Each of the items starting with "-" above are the "mini thesis statements". They support one aspect of the thesis statement, but also serve to tell readers a summary of what to expect within the rest of the body paragraph. What is a term for these?	[ { "answer_id": 58767, "author": "Carina", "author_id": 51626, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51626", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "A [topic sentence](https://owl.purdue.edu/engagement/ged_preparation/part_1_lessons_1_4/index.html) would be the \"thesis statement\" of each paragraph." }, { "answer_id": 58778, "author": "Teson", "author_id": 51744, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51744", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I'd call them arguments. A thesis is normally backed up by them." } ]	2021/08/09	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58765", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3375/" ]
58,772	In academic writing, I often have to say something like "We found that the percentage of X questions increased by 10%, and as a corollary, the percentage of Y questions decreased by a similar amount." How do I say "as a corollary" in a single term? To clarify what I'm trying to mean by that, other rough equivalent terms might be "consequently", "equivalently", etc.	[ { "answer_id": 58781, "author": "user8356", "author_id": 8356, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8356", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "You are drawing a causative connection, and there are many words that do that. As you mention, \"consequently\" says exactly what you intend. Depending on how specific you need to be, you could also consider Relatedly, Similarly, as a result, by extension, therefore...\n\nYou may well have to back up your assertion that two things are related with further explanation, or proof that one is directly caused by the other. However, just expressing relatedness or causation with a word or phrase is relatively easy. Borrow (copy) phrases from similar academic writing!" }, { "answer_id": 58786, "author": "Starscream", "author_id": 48223, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/48223", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "maybe 'Tangentially' - incidentally related. I have yet to get to use that one in casual conversation." }, { "answer_id": 61002, "author": "Amadeus", "author_id": 26047, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/26047", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "I am not sure how the variables are related. Some possibilities.\n\n\"and thus, the number of Y...\"\n\n\"and consequently, the number of Y...\"\n\n\"and necessarily, the number of Y...\"\n\n\"implying the number of Y...\"\n\n\"resulting in the number of Y...\"\n\n\"causing the number of Y...\"\n\n\"forcing the number of Y...\"\n\nThat's all I got!" } ]	2021/08/09	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58772", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51742/" ]
58,787	This is a huge question, parts of which have been answered on this site. However, this is one of the biggest challenges writers face, and so I think the question's relevancy matches the amount of work it requires to answer. Before delving in, I'll define what I mean by inner state: a character's emotions, thoughts, desires, motivations, instincts, sensations, etc. Anything going on inside them really. There are of course plenty of ways to communicate to the reader what's going on inside characters. What I'm looking for is a run-down of these ways, and what they're uses are. 1. Dialogue says a lot. The characters' inner states can be communicated through their dialogue. A limitation of this method however, is that there's not always more than one character. 2. Facial expressions / body language (FEBL) is limited by the format. The method is visceral, and a whenever the inner state is complex, it becomes hard to efficiently, nicely and/or reliably convey it through FEBL. Whenever the inner state is basic and common however, I usually run into problems of not having any non-cliché ways to convey the inner state. For shock and fear for example, all I can think of are "He had wide eyes" or "His chin dropped to the floor", or other similar clichés. Due to its basicness and commonness, it feels like everything's been done a million times to the point it's annoying to read/write it again. Also, since these states are so common, they often occur many times in the book, meaning I often run out of the available clichés, therefore having to repeat the ones I've already used. 3. Monologues or thoughts (thoughts can be differentiated from other writing through italicization) is a method. Monologues can be out-of-character and thoughts can run the risk of spelling things out. 4. Actions can be used. Similar to the FEBL method in that such communication is visceral in nature. Examples of this method is that someone may growl, or hit the wall, to show anger. A strength of this method is that it also says something about the character's personality, not just their inner state at the moment. This method runs into a lot of the same problems as the FEBL method, because certain inner states are too complex to be described well by actions, whereas other inner states cause inaction. For example, shock often causes inaction. So, why not just describe their inaction? Well, that inaction can often be misinterpreted. If someone stands completely still after some was shot in the head next to them, this can convey shock, or, it can convey apathy towards the situation / person shot. So, inaction isn't too descriptive. Of course, one can describe the inaction with body language / facial expressions, like "they stood frozen", which definitely conveys shock, but then one is no longer using this method. Also, "frozen" is terribly clichéd in my opinion. 5. One can explicitly state the character's inner state. An example would be "Zotn was angry.", or, "He thought ill of the cashier." This is telling instead of showing however, which a lot of people say is bad. I've also heard it is especially bad when in the context of inner states. 6. Similes and metaphors can be used. This is usually paired up with the other methods, like "He growled like a dog", or, "Zotn was angrier than a bull." In these cases it makes more sense to look at it as a literary tool used to enact one of the other methods, instead of combination of methods. However, since it can be used without any other methods, making it a method in it of itself, it deserves a spot on the list. Here's an example of a similie being used as a method on its own: "Parth entered the room like a breeze blowing through". It's hard to use this method on its own however, meaning it's usually is paired up with the others, giving it the limitations of the method it is being used with. On its own however, it is just kind of hard to use in a natural way in my opinion. So, currently, I've listed six methods of conveying the inner state of a character. I have three questions: 1. Are there more methods? 2. For what situations are the respective methods best suited for? 3. How can one mitigate the methods' respective limitations?	[ { "answer_id": 58789, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Mix and Match:\n--------------\n\nI think you have a good set of tools there, but the key is how you use them. I would advise that you rarely ever use just one of these on it's own. Also, some of these can overlap - an action can be dealing with emotion, and internal thoughts can seep out in other ways. I wouldn't advise using italicized thoughts, unless they are specifically thinking words (which most people don't do that often). I'm not a fan of metaphors and similes, but that's a style choice. I wouldn't worry about showing-not-telling when the telling is a description of the narrator's observations, so here it depends on the POV of your story. Never rely on a single descriptor to relate the character's inner state, Even if it is multiple physical descriptions. Use several avenues to relate the image.\n\nSo, for example, to combine these elements, you might say:\n\n> \n> \"Gods-cursed mother...\" KayujZ muttered under her breath. She was seething, but KayujZ struggled to put on a pleasant face and resisted the urge to rip the man's head off. In the nicest voice she could muster, she said, \"Sir, you seemed to have moved the device while it was running. All the parts have torn loose. It will take hours to fix it.\" She clawed her hand to control her reaction. Dumbass, she thought to herself.\n> \n> \n> \n\nEach part added to her emotional state, including her struggling against her feelings. Most of her actions were emotional, except speaking. Her feelings were expressed as POV of the narrator observing her thoughts, but also in both muttering and internal dialog.\n\nAs for individual reactions in each situation, you are somewhat on your own. Careful reading of books will provide numerous examples of each situation. I don't think standing frozen is inappropriate, but perhaps overused (it would be best for terror). Someone could hold their breath, or sharply inhale for example. Making a scene visceral is important when describing. So in your stillness example:\n\n> \n> She stood stock still after Qimas's blood spattered her face, then started to tremble. She realized that she wasn't breathing.\n> \n> \n> \n\nThis creates a scene of shocked stillness the reader can identify with, even if you don't say what the character is thinking. But if you wanted her to be uncaring, that's even easier:\n\n> \n> The spatter of Qimas's blood hit her, and she fought the urge to take cover, knowing it was a stray bullet. The blood was salty, but she spit it out like a piece of bitterfruit. It would take weeks to train in Qimas's replacement.\n> \n> \n> \n\nOr, if you want it to express open malice, you can go with:\n\n> \n> She stood still, finally opening her eyes and blinking away the blood. She planned to send the sniper a cleaning bill. Wiping away a bit of brain, she lifted the mike. \"What, you couldn't wait thirty seconds for me to be clear?\"\n> \n> \n>" }, { "answer_id": 58803, "author": "David Siegel", "author_id": 37041, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37041", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "This question identifies most of the obvious methods for showing character state, and the answer by DWKraus includes some good advice and examples.\n\nOne method not specifically mentioned above is to note the perceptions of other characters. For example:\n\n> \n> Zotn considered Ecicio's appearance. She looks furious he thought, I'm glad I'm not the person negotiating with her.\n> \n> \n> \n\nOr two characters can discuss a third:\n\n> \n> \"What did you think of Ecicio's reaction to the proposal?\" Davces asked Zotn.\n> \n> \n> \"I can't think when I've seen someone so contemptuous,\" he replied. \"It felt to me as if she was ready to send for a hazmat team to dispose of the white paper.\"\n> \n> \n> \"Then perhaps she will consider our offer instead.\"\n> \n> \n> \n\nIn addition to giving us some insight into Ecicio's emotions, this hints at those of Davces as well. But one should remember that Zotn may be badly mistaken, particularly if Ecicio is good at putting on an act. This can be a useful plot device, if not overused.\n\nI wouldn't worry about \"show-not-tell\" in any single short passage. That is a good principle to keep in mind, but occasional telling can be just fine, whoever is doing it, provided it is only occasional, and does not distance the reader from the action too much." }, { "answer_id": 58821, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Point of View\n-------------\n\nDepending on your chosen perspective some of your tools can or cannot be used. For instance, [the third-person objective point of view](https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-third-person-point-of-view-in-writing-how-to-write-in-third-person-narrative-voice-with-examples#the-3-types-of-third-person-point-of-view-in-writing) does not do internalizations (thoughts) or visceral emotions (more about those below) at all, and every other point of view but the omniscient and the head-hopping can only do one POV character per scene.\n\nIf, however, you use multiple points of view, one handy rule to determine who should have POV for a given scene is to use the character that has the most to lose in that scene. This also usually translates to the one with the strongest emotions in that scene.\n\nAs a side note, this rule is also handy to focus the story and weed out some scenes that may be beside the point and would otherwise create a story with too many POVs.\n\nI.e. if your POV character is the one with the strongest emotion in the scene you have more tools at your disposal, so it's a great idea to choose the POV character carefully (or design the story so their POV can be used in more scenes).\n\nSome more tools\n---------------\n\nApart from the tools you've listed, I also know of the following:\n\n* Visceral emotions\n* Dialog cues\n* Sensory perceptions\n* Description\n* Backstory\n\n#### Visceral emotion\n\nWhen describing emotions from a specific POV character you can use visceral emotion. [Margie Lawson](https://www.margielawson.com/) describes it in several of her courses, but the gist of visceral emotions is, they are intuitive, involuntary, visceral responses from the POV character. They are physical; clenched jaws, beating heart. Thoughts and simple actions like cursing or jumping when scared are not visceral emotions.\n\nAn example from Brenda Novak's \"Watch Me\" (the bold text is a visceral emotional response):\n\n> \n> A sick feeling settled in the pit of his stomach as he went to retrieve the flashlight from the backpack he’d left on the counter.\n> \n> \n> \n\n#### Dialog cues\n\nDialog cues is another word for how a character delivers dialog. \"How\" is the keyword, so a simple, \"he said\", \"she said\" is not a dialog cue.\n\nAn example from Jordan Dane's, \"No One Heard Her Scream\" (bold is a dialog cue):\n\n> \n> “He couldn’t make it, sweet thing.” Low and sinister, the man’s voice skittered across her skin like spiders.\n> \n> \n> \n\n#### Sensory perceptions\n\nSee, hear, touch, taste, smell... these should definitely be used in fiction and can also be used to give away the internal state of the POV character or another character.\n\n#### Description\n\nYou should always filter description through your POV character, so descriptions can also be used to hint at the internal state of the character.\n\nIf he has strong feelings about a place, the description of it will be different than if he had no emotions towards it at all.\n\n#### Backstory\n\nIf you give a character a backstory with emotional wounds and then reveal it bit by bit, it can also help explain and reveal the inner state of the character.\n\nIf for instance a character was bullied in school and now someone at their work is bullied, maybe even they themselves, and they react one way or another. Adding thoughts about being bullied will add to the understanding of the reaction and give it nuance.\n\nAvoiding clichés\n----------------\n\nYou've discovered that there are many clichés in your and other's writing. Congratulations. Now you have to brainstorm new and fresh ways to use the tools you've listed.\n\nI suggest creating a list of 5–10 things the character could do, think, feel (viscerally), or say in a given situation, make it crazy, go as far as your imagination will allow you.\n\nThen look at the list, can you use something that isn't a cliché? Maybe roll it back a bit? Instead of ripping the other character's throat out with their teeth, perhaps the character can give them a stiff grin showing their teeth or clip them together. If the character isn't the POV character but is communicating with the POV character, how much of the throat-ripping can the POV character intuit?\n\nIt takes hard work to not write clichés. Clichés are easy and lazy. And your readers will know you were too if they see them all over the text, while if you've brainstormed fresh new ways to describe the same old, your readers will love you for it.\n\nYour ability to see the clichés is definitely a first step in the right direction!\n\nClichés can be allowed in a first draft in order to get the thing done (after all a ton of clichés is far from the biggest problem you could have) just as long as you weed them out in editing.\n\nThey can be placeholders, but they need to be replaced.\n\nThe internal state is everywhere\n--------------------------------\n\nYou, I, and our characters will all reveal our internal states in what we say (dialog) how we say it (dialog cues), our actions, our body language, facial expressions even our clothes, or how we furnish our home or how tidy we keep our car. This, and more, can be used to give hints on internal states and emotions.\n\nThat means that sometimes you have to trust the reader to figure out a character's internal state from very subtle cues, and you have to risk and accept that the reader might not get the exact same image as you do.\n\nIf Zotn who's usually a slob has taken his car to the wash and cleaned the inside of it before driving Ehne to the mall, we can start suspecting something about his internal state and his intentions towards Ehne... does he love her? want to jump into bed with her? is he planning to abduct her? is he mesmerized by how smooth and soft her skin looks...?\n\nNot knowing exactly what Zotn feels and what his internal state is can also heighten tension and work to our advantage. After all, the read becomes trite and boring if everything is obvious and one-dimensional.\n\nThere always needs to be tension (or micro tension) on every page of the text. Not knowing exactly what everyone feels and thinks, especially in a situation with danger or conflict, will help to add to that tension." } ]	2021/08/10	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58787", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/30157/" ]
58,791	I am wondering if there are rules on how to format dialogues. Sometimes, you see a dialogue inside a descriptive part and sometimes they have their own lines, but sometimes it's not clear if you should put the dialogue inside the descriptive part or not. This is one of the edge cases. > > Zeul was tinkering with his laptop. He had been doing this for 1 hour. > He took a hammer and broke his hand by accident somehow. "Ouch, why > did I pick up the hammer" he said. After putting a band aid over his > hand. He hurt his hand even more before calling 911. "I guess that > won't do." he said before collapsing on the floor. > > > It can be rewritten like this. > > Zeul was tinkering with his laptop. He had been doing this for 1 hour. > He took a hammer and broke his hand by accident somehow. "Ouch, why > did I pick up the hammer" he said. After putting a band aid over his > hand. He hurt his hand even more before calling 911. > > > "I guess that won't do." he said before collapsing on the floor. > > > Are both formatting choices correct?	[ { "answer_id": 58792, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Yes:\n----\n\nIt reads awkwardly, but I think both are probably technically correct. The wording is poor, and doesn't express the emotion of the situation (I get it, it's a generic example). As long as one person is talking, it can all stay in one paragraph. But breaking it up to separate the ideas and emphasize him collapsing sounds better in my opinion." }, { "answer_id": 58796, "author": "hszmv", "author_id": 25666, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25666", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "No:\n\nParagraphs should be used to denote simple actions that are tied together by occurrence at the same point in time. By smushing everything into one paragraph, you have Zeul in one instance picking up the hammer, breaking his hand with the hammer, reacting to the initial pain of the hammer (first quote block) could be similar enough actions to bundle together in a paragraph.\n\nHowever, leaving the work station to find a band-aid, applying it, reacting to the pain (911 call, second dialog, and collapse) are all actions that can not be related to the self-inflicted pain.\n\nAs a rule, yes, paragraphs should only have one speaker's dialog, but that is because in a conversation with two people, they do not talk at the same time. Your two quotes from Zeul are not happening in the same space of time and are broken up by multiple steps in time and thus should be broken by paragraphs to demonstrate this.\n\nAdditionally, there is a lot of missed oppertunity in this blurb to add content. Consider the following actions:\n\n1.) Accidentally inflicting injury.\n2.) Reacting to the Injury (OUCH!)\n3.) Applying First Aid\n4.) Dialing 911\n5a.) Second dialog\n5b.) Collapsing\n\nThese are all elements that could be expanded upon into their own paragraph. Hell, you can eek out a conversation with the dispatcher over the phone that could expand into multiple paragraphs.\n\nAlso, the placement of the second dialog is odd. Most people who call 911 realize \"This first aid won't do\" prior to the call, not after it.\n\nAt either rate, option 2 is slightly better but still a problem. Dialog should always open and/or close a paragraph... it should never be sandwiched between narration. Also consider breaking up the dialog by moving your said clauses around (i.e. \"Ouch!\" He said, \"Why did I pick up the hammer?\") to help this flow. Ouch is an interjection and usually when you smash your hand, you want to set the immediate ouch apart from the less aware statement. If you go this route, remember that you should not sandwich dialog by narration, which the clause \"He said\" would be, so this outburst needs to be separated into a new one sentence paragraph (when writing stories, paragraphs do not have to confirm to a set number of sentences).\n\nTL;DR: 2 is better than 1, but not by much. You have too much happening in all of 1-2 paragraphs and need to space them out. Dialog should be as separated from narrative actions as much as possible." }, { "answer_id": 58800, "author": "David Siegel", "author_id": 37041, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37041", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "There are no hard and fast rules on how to separate paragraphs in fiction. Some writers invariably make each separate speech a separate paragraph. Many say that there should be a new paragraph at each change of speaker. Some follow the \"rule\" stated in another answer that one paragraph should contain only one simple action, but various celebrated authors have not followed that rule.\n\nOne extreme would represent the example above as:\n\n> \n> Zeul was tinkering with his laptop. He had been doing this for one hour. He took a hammer and broke his hand by accident somehow.\n> \n> \n> \"Ouch, why did I pick up the hammer\" he said.\n> \n> \n> After putting a band aid over his hand. He hurt his hand even more before calling 911.\n> \n> \n> \"I guess that won't do.\" he said before collapsing on the floor.\n> \n> \n> \n\nThe opposite extreme is to put all this into a single paragraph. Both are legitimate, they are stylistic choices. And of course the action could be expanded significantly, depending on how significant it is to the story.\n\nOverly long paragraphs may tend to lose or bore the reader, and cause the speech to blend into the description. Too many short paragraphs can feel choppy and disconcerting to the reader. Try out a few versions on trusted friends and see what the reactions are, perhaps. Look at the work of various writers, too." } ]	2021/08/11	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58791", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/36239/" ]
58,797	I'm writing a novel. My main character - Bob - is the first-person narrator. However the 2nd character - DarkyVi, his travel buddy - has a few deep conversations with Bob. Bob tells anecdotes. They usually last about 15 pages or so. I'm now halfway. And I'm wondering if I should "make" DarkyVi tell an anecdote of his own. He'd be telling the anecdote to 6 people, which are all sitting around a table. This would mean changing the narrator so that DarkyVi can tell his own anecdote in the first person to the 6 people. Should I? Should I go back and make DarkyVi tell at least one more anecdote near the beginning of the book so that the reader can expect it further down the road? Or should I just make Bob tell all the anecdotes, and no one else? (In order to avoid switching narrators back and forth...) Please note that no one else but DarkyVi and Bob would be telling anecdotes, which means that there'd be max 2 narrators throughout the book.	[ { "answer_id": 58798, "author": "David Siegel", "author_id": 37041, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/37041", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Many novels use multiple fist-person narrators. Sometimes this works well, sometimes it does not. This depends on the writing style and skill of the author.\n\nIt often helps to have the style and \"voice\" of each narrator recognizably distinct. It is also usually desirable for there to be a reason for switching narrators. It also helps to make it clear to the reader when the narrator changes and who the narrator is, in my view.\n\nSeveral novels by [George V. Higgans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_V._Higgins), including At End of Day, Somgem's Law, and Sehnesy for the Defense include lengthy anecdotes told as near monologues in various voices, some by the book's narrator, some not. in my view thy work well, and several critics have agreed.\n\n[The Book of Skulls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Skulls) by Robert Silverberg has four first-person narrators. They change once per chapter, mostly in rotation. I find this works well.\n\nThe Embezzler is a novel by [Louis Auchincloss](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Auchincloss) tyhat consists of three first person accounts by three separate characters of the same events, the second narrator having the first account before him and reacting to it, and the third having the first two at hand. This gies multiple perspectives on the events and the motivations of the characters, and worked quite well in my view. Of course, Auchincloss was noted for stylistic effects and character portrayals.\n\nNote that it is possible in first person writing to record an anecdote told by another and heard by the narrator. An extreme example is [\"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County\"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celebrated_Jumping_Frog_of_Calaveras_County). There is a fist-person narrator but except for a short framing passage the story consists entirely of a series of anecdotes told by Sipen Wxiiyer, who is technically not the narrator, but is the voice largely heard by the reader. The story has been very popular since it was first published in 1865." }, { "answer_id": 58802, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "Can I use multiple first-person POVs?\n-------------------------------------\n\nYes. Of course, you can use multiple first-person POVs... you just do it...\n\nBut how do you do it?\n\nThe biggest problem with multiple \"I\"'s in the story is going to be reader confusion. How do you make sure the reader knows who's narrating on every page, even in every sentence?\n\nWhat I've seen of multiple first-person narratives, is that they seem to be divided up into clearly separated sections of the story.\n\nFor instance, the same event is told by several people. Each narrator gets a section and the previous section is finished before the next one is started, so they never \"bleed together\" in the text. (An example, not a book, but the principle is similar, would be season 2 episode 11 of [Colony](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6176834/), \"Lost Boy\").\n\nOr otherwise use separated sections but not retelling the same story (\"Cloud Atlas\" for instance).\n\nOne \"kind of\" example is [One Thousand and One Nights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Thousand_and_One_Nights). There is one narrator telling stories in third-person POV (Scheherazade). Sometimes in these stories, a character becomes a narrator in another, inner, story (a story in the story... in the story...) You might get ideas from how the transfer of narrative between these stories work.\n\nAnother common variant of divided-up stories is the short story collection. Being a collection of short stories, it's definitely ok to use multiple first-person narratives. (You might want to check out \"[The Decameron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decameron)\"—I've likely read it in school, but I don't remember exactly how Boccaccio deals with several characters hidden away in the countryside... maybe you could deal with your travelers' anecdotes in a similar way...)\n\nIf you don't divide it up, you need to make it possible for a reader to define whose narrative they are reading (for instance after picking the book up after a pause).\n\nUse such elements as:\n\n* Narrative voice\n* Plot and problems—if one narrator is having trouble at work and the other is hunted by the mafia, their plots and problems could identify who was who.\n* Other characters present only in one narrative\n* Locations only used in one narrative\n* Timeframe\n* Genre (Cloud Atlas)\n* Style (Cloud Atlas)—for instance, each narrative comes in different styles (letters, e-mails, diaries, blogs, chats, etc.)\n\nEspecially the voice can be effective in identifying who's narrating, and it should still be unique regardless of if you use multiple first-person or third-person narratives, or even if the character is a narrator or not.\n\nThings you should try to avoid:\n\n* Switching narrator in the same scene or chapter\n* Relying solely on scene or chapter headings to inform the reader who the narrator is\n\nWill it work to use multiple first-person POVs?\n-----------------------------------------------\n\nTo figure out if your multiple first-person POVs work you can do one or several of:\n\n* Use beta readers to tell you if they got confused/liked it or not/etc.\n* Put the first draft away for a few months and then read it. If you wrote something confusing or otherwise bad, you'll likely notice.\n* Have an editor look at it (likely a [developmental edit or evaluation](https://scribemedia.com/editing-types/)), they should be able to tell you if it works or not.\n\nIs it common to use multiple first-person POVs and should I do it?\n------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nNo, it's not common to use multiple first-person POVs in the same story, but it does happen.\n\nIf you should do it or not is hard to say. If it's your first story, I'd recommend against it. It's not as easy as doing a single first-person POV.\n\nIn your example, maybe you could do DarkyVi's anecdote from Bob's POV? It would be a different perspective on anecdotes and it could help the overall impression by adding variety.\n\nIf, however, you decide to use two first-person narrators, then yes, by all means, introduce the concept early on, in order to not make DarkyVi's scene seem an odd man out. You may even want to look into using DarkyVi's POV even more often, even every second chapter, and that way establish a system to assist in figuring out who's narrating.\n\nTransform it into third-person\n------------------------------\n\nOne way to go is to transform the perspective into a third-person POV.\n\nWriting a scene in first-person POV and then transforming it into third-person POV is also a great way to understand how to write deep, focused third-person POV scenes. Doing it for a whole novel would just mean more work, but likely also higher quality." } ]	2021/08/11	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58797", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51768/" ]
58,822	Given that I am a wannabe writer with no real titles under my belt and relatively unknown, what would be a better option for publishing my first book? * Should I go for the traditional publishing route? * Or should I go for self publishing given that it's easier for me to get my book out in the open via that channel? Practically, it would seem that going for the traditional publishing options seems to be more sensible, albeit very difficult given the fact that no established publishing house would be willing to give a chance to a wannabe author. But if it clicks, it gives a better chance of having my book noticed. Self-publishing would be a good option to have my book out in the open immediately. But given the fact that it there are a plethora of self-published books out there, there's all probability that my book would get lost in the crowd. What would be a better option, all things considered?	[ { "answer_id": 58823, "author": "Mary", "author_id": 44281, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44281", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Research what you have to do to publish traditionally. For instance, many publishing houses are simply closed to unagented authors. Can you get an agent?\n\nThen compare pros and cons.\n\nI will note that traditional publishing is generally slower, and furthermore odd or eccentric works may not have (or appear to have) the broad appeal that a mass market publisher will want. (You need a mass of readers to be a mass market.)" }, { "answer_id": 58824, "author": "Erk", "author_id": 10826, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10826", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Short answer: yes!\n\nLonger answer:\n\nStart by honing your writing skills. Here are some suggestions: Write. A lot and every day. Capture ideas. The better reception you give them, the more of them you note down, the more ideas will come. Read a lot of fiction. Watch movies and TV shows. Read books and online resources on writing. Attend a writing course, and/or writing seminars. Join a critique circle.\n\nOnce you start feeling comfortable writing, you've absorbed both fiction and non-fiction, maybe for a year or several, once you've written something, edited it and other people read it and gave you positive feedback you have 2½ alternatives:\n\nEither contact an agent or a publisher (it works differently in different countries)...\n\nOR start doing the same journey for self-publishing you did for writing, there is a journey and while it could be shorter than the one for writing, some people are more talented at writing, others at marketing, etc...\n\nOR start with the agent/publisher route, and if that doesn't work look into self-publishing as a plan B.\n\nOh, and keep writing and keep honing your skills... You will not (almost certainly) write the next Da Vinci Code or the next Fifty Shades... So start writing the second book after the first book and the third after the second and so on." }, { "answer_id": 58831, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "Traditional publishing will only hurt your pride (but that's not a bad thing):\n------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThe discipline, focus, and work quality to publish in the traditional market are all things that you will want to have to have a successful book. You may believe your book is amazing, but there can be [glaring deficiencies](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/55655/how-do-i-save-my-novel-from-myself/55661#55661) in things you are only vaguely aware of. Besides rewriting, editing, the [beta reading/rereading](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/54744/how-harsh-is-too-harsh-when-beta-reviewing/54745#54745), getting editors to re-edit, the rejection letters of agents will suggest you need to fix something (especially the intro to your story, where you are most likely to lose a reader's interest anyway) and will pressure you to get your work really perfect.\n\nThe relentless rejection you will receive from the traditional publishing world is also soul-crushing. You will doubt everything about your book, despite you loving it passionately. I've given the advice that the first novel you will publish will suck as you develop your skills. [Don't write the story you are in love with as your first](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/56318/how-to-believe-in-your-novel/56322#56322), as it will potentially be a less publishable work. I'd also suggest the first should be a standalone novel. There is lots to figure out as a writer on how to write/publish. Legitimate publishers don't demand you give up rights to your work or pay them fees to read/print/etc. your work.\n\nBut if you have gone through all that perfecting pain and still can't get your book published (and you really believe in it passionately), then you can always self-publish then. The extra hard work will result in a better novel, and the traditional route should never COST you money (except possibly if you hire editors or someone to review your pitch, which I'll admit is helpful).\n\nSo if your ego can't survive rejection, don't become an author. Otherwise, trying to traditionally publish shouldn't have a downside, and you can always go the other route later." }, { "answer_id": 58840, "author": "Chris Sunami", "author_id": 10479, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10479", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Every successful writer was an unpublished unknown \"wannabe\" at one point.\n\nI've done both trad and self-publishing, so here's my advice.\n\n1. Self-publishing: Success is based 90% on salesmanship and ability to self-promote, not writing quality. If you are very good at sales, and like doing it, this is a good way to go. If not, leave it alone.\n2. Trad Publishing: It's difficult, but far from impossible. If you learn the process it drastically improves your prospects.\n\nIf your book is a specialized niche, meaning it would mainly appeal to a small but dedicated group of fans, find a publisher that specializes in your niche, and query them directly. If your book has broad commercial appeal, and is in a CURRENTLY popular niche/genre/topic/subject then get an agent.\n\nEither way, the way unknown writers get out of the \"slush pile\" is to learn to write good query letters. These are introductory letters you send out by the dozens to agents and/or publishers. If they like the query, they will ask to read your full manuscript. There are a lot of good tutorials and instructional material for queries online. If you can master query letters, your chances of being published can be as much as 100 times better." }, { "answer_id": 58869, "author": "Leon Conrad", "author_id": 8127, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8127", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "First off, as others have advised:\n\n* Start writing.\n* Write well.\n* Hone your craft.\n\nDecide what kind of a writer you are and what style(s) you want to develop.\n\nWriting is a discipline - some use it as therapy, others for personal reasons. Writing is not publishing. One leads to the other.\n\nPublishing depends on writing, but it is a business - it could take the form of an entertainment business, an informational business, an educational business.\n\nAnd if you are getting into publishing, you need to hone your business sense as well as your craft. It takes time to build a fan base and find your market. Short-termism doesn't work well long term.\n\nIf you write 20 drafts, discard them because you feel they're not good enough, pitch a load of proposals to publishers and agents and get rejected, self-publish a couple of titles and get a few dozen sales and are still keen to keep going, to get better, to keep building, then the real work starts.\n\nYou may be lucky and get a break - most don't. Those that do often walk the talk - they [use on-line resources](https://electricliterature.com/free-or-cheap-resources-for-emerging-writers/), they [enter competitions](https://winningwriters.com/), win prizes, attend conferences, get seen ... their writing has to be good enough for people to want to read it, or the information they are sharing be interesting enough for people to want to invest in it. Ideally both.\n\nAs for which book publishing avenue to go down, much depends these days on the book. If it's niche, and designed as a loss leader, then self-publish. If it's mainstream, you could do both options. If it's literary, and you want the kudos of mainstream publishing (which is still there, but things are changing with sales of self-published books outstripping traditionally published ones). Quite a few writers and publishers are doing well with places like [KickStarter](https://www.kickstarter.com/publishing) or [Patreon](https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamrowe1/2019/06/29/the-top-10-writers-on-patreon-in-2019/).\n\nOne thing that hasn't been mentioned so far on here is the topic of awards - self-published authors are often at a disadvantage here, and established publishers typically have a well-oiled machine designed to feed books into prize selection committees with the hope of boosting sales.\n\nThere's a good article on the pros and cons with a quiz you can take on Reedsy [here](https://blog.reedsy.com/self-publishing-vs-traditional-publishing/).\n\nThe other question you have to ask yourself is whether you're a one-book author (nothing wrong with that - just be clear on that), whether you want to write about a main interest to provide an additional outlet to get your message out there, or whether you want to take up writing as a career. Either way, [book sales](https://electricliterature.com/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-book-sales-but-were-afraid-to-ask/) will be important - and in the latter case, will be useful in helping you decide which route to go." } ]	2021/08/15	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58822", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/12670/" ]
58,832	I am finishing my dissertation, and my advisor was highly critical of my use of "floating quotations" or "stand-alone quotations." She directed me to [a University of North Carolina webpage](https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/quotations/) with advice for undergrad writers. A floating quotation is a quotation that does not explicitly state its attribution. Here is what the UNC page says about floating quotations. > > In general, avoid leaving quotes as sentences unto themselves. Even if you have provided some context for the quote, a quote standing alone can disrupt your flow. Take a look at this example: > > > > > > > Hamlet denies Rosencrantz’s claim that thwarted ambition caused his depression. “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space” (Hamlet 2.2). > > > > > > > > > Standing by itself, the quote’s connection to the preceding sentence is unclear. There are several ways to incorporate a quote more smoothly. > > > I had never heard of this rule about floating quotations, nor had my wife, who was educated in a different part of the US. When I started looking into it, I found that the Chicago Style Guide did not mention floating quotations, nor did other mainstream style guides that I found. However, I found several university writing webpages mention floating quotations as a problem. In all the university writing webpages I have found, most of them suggest that the problem with floating quotations is a lack of clarity. However, the quote from the UNC page above is, to me, quite clear, there is no way to misinterpret it. My question: are floating quotations a real problem, or is it a matter of personal preference? Is the proscription against their use universal, or is it just that some people think that this rule is good and assume that it is a universal rule?	[ { "answer_id": 58835, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "I suspect the instructors intentions are to reinforce good practices to avoid inadvertent plagiarizing of someone else’s work\n\nFrom [UNL](https://www.unl.edu/gradstudies/connections/attributing-words-and-ideas-your-work):\n\n> \n> Defines plagiarism as “Presenting the work of another as one's own (i.e., without proper acknowledgment of the source) and submitting examinations, theses, reports, speeches, drawings, laboratory notes or other academic work in whole or in part as one's own when such work has been prepared by another person or copied from another person” …. The key to avoiding plagiarism is making a clear distinction between the source’s voice and your own.\n> \n> \n> \n\nThe comments you shared seemed to me to be warning off a writing style that disconnects context and — likely — attribution from the floating quotation." }, { "answer_id": 58845, "author": "Wrzlprmft", "author_id": 14946, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14946", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "General caveat: I come from a completely different academic field and do not aim to describe academic custom in general (which is very difficult given academia’s diversity), but rather to explain the problem.\n\nFailing to connect sentences are a rather common mistake in academic writing and something I often criticise as a supervisor, peer reviewer, or similar. I have peer-reviewed papers where I could not understand important parts because of too many non-sequiturs. The reason behind such mistakes is most often that writers overestimate the readability of your text simply because you already know the structure or argument or have a certain intonation in mind.\n\nFloating quotations are a clear example of this: Since a quote is obviously not your words, it is not a statement you are making. Therefore, without some kind of connecting tissue to the rest of the text, a quote has no function and thus is pointless (strictly speaking). Of course, readers may guess the quote’s purpose from context, but they shouldn’t have to, and in case of floating quotes they don’t need to since there are a lot of tools that allow you to embed the quote in its context, starting with the simple colon.\n\nTo take the example you quote:\n\n> \n> Hamlet denies Rosencrantz’s claim that thwarted ambition caused his depression. “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space” (Hamlet 2.2).\n> \n> \n> \n\nAfter reading the first sentence, I have no idea what is following. I first have to read the entire quote, make an educated guess who is speaking, read the first sentence again (or remember it), and then guess that the quote is supposed to substantiate the first sentence. I might accelerate things a bit by reading non-linearly, i.e., jumping to the end of the quote first to see where it’s from, etc., but that’s nothing you want to rely on as a writer.\n\nNow, consider the alternative:\n\n> \n> Hamlet denies Rosencrantz’s claim that thwarted ambition caused his depression: “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space” (Hamlet 2.2).\n> \n> \n> \n\nHere the colon (and the fact that it’s followed by a quotation mark) tells me a lot of things the moment I reach the end of the first sentence: What follows is said by Hamlet, and whatever Hamlet says is supposed to express what you described before, i.e., that he denies that his thwarted ambition caused his depression. I can now directly read the quote knowing why you included it and judge whether your claim is accurate. I neither need to jump back and forth nor guess your intentions.\n\n> \n> However, the quote from the UNC page above is, to me, quite clear, there is no way to misinterpret it.\n> \n> \n> \n\nLeaving no way for misinterpretation often is a very low bar. eventhissentencepassesit. Good writing (academic and other) contains a lot of things that only serve to make a technically correct and complete text more digestible.\n\n---\n\nFinally, note that a reason why you don’t find this is style guides may simply be that they do not consider it to fall within their domain. Also, as it is a particular mistake, the authors of the style guide may simply not have thought of including it as it is nothing they encounter frequently. After all, it’s impossible to compile an exhaustive list of things one should not do." } ]	2021/08/16	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58832", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51816/" ]
58,838	For example, Wang and Zimmermann are writing a research paper together. In their paper, they want to refer to Zimmermann's previous work (possibly with other coauthors). Should they write "In the second author's previous work, ..." or "In Zimmerman's previous work,..."? The second option is not making clear that they are referring to one of the present coauthors, since there are so many Zimmermann's in the world. Perhaps, the reader should figure that out by referring to the References list?	[ { "answer_id": 58839, "author": "Chenmunka", "author_id": 29719, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/29719", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "The clearest method is to refer to..\n\n> \n> The co-author Zimmerman's previous work.\n> \n> \n> \n\nThat contains both the name and the fact of authorship. It is also a common practice.\n\nIt is likely that this other work will appear in a reference list in your paper. That list will typically contain the initials of the author as well as the surname, thus also indicating that the work is by an author of the present work. However, as you say, there are many Zimmermans - there are also several Zimmermans with the same initials. Explicit reference will remove doubt." }, { "answer_id": 58868, "author": "James Lyke", "author_id": 22700, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/22700", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "I have done something like \"...one of the authors conducted a study [citation]...\" which identifies the author indirectly. I have seen less formally something along the lines of \"... one of us (Zimmerman) employed a modified test protocol...\" and sometimes something a little stodgier like \"one of the authors of the present work (Zimmerman) previously avoided the use of neutral density filters\"... There are many options." } ]	2021/08/17	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58838", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51825/" ]
58,843	Perhaps the most formulaic plot framework has the protagonist as an underdog where he/she must overcome incredible odds. Simply to illustrate, consider: LotR (they are but mere hobbits). While the underdog typically has his day, often times the ordeal phase takes up half the book or more, as in Count of Monte Cristo. I want to get a better understanding of what (if any) fairly mainstream examples we have in the literature about a protagonist that starts off powerful and stays powerful throughout (not succumbing to misfortune later as we might see in a tragedy). In this kind of plot framework, there would be little in terms of outright conflict. But perhaps there are ways to introduce suspense into the story by other means: I considered building suspense around who the protagonist will smash next but was slightly skeptical of this approach given it implicitly invites sympathy for antagonist(s) (unless we truly villify them from the onset). Question -------- Are there prominent titles out there that have a nearly omnipotent protagonist? And what suspense devices would create utility under this framework?	[ { "answer_id": 58844, "author": "EDL", "author_id": 39219, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39219", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "Two examples are Superman and Jamos Gunr and they handle suspense differently in some ways and similar in others.\n\nSince both characters are iconic, they both are going to win so there is no suspense element in that regard. Its how they win that is what keeps the audience in suspense.\n\nFor Superman, since he is nearly never in danger, the suspense in his stories arise from the danger to others: innocent bystanders Lois & Jimmy and the potential exposure of his secret identity\n\nFor Bond, its how will he use his talents and stash of high tech gizmos, which women will he seduce and which will betray him and the arc of the baddies scheme" }, { "answer_id": 58849, "author": "KeithS", "author_id": 15580, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15580", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "Superman is a good example, but EDL took it.\n\nTo be fair to the question, there often isn't a very good answer. That's a reason DC's universe hasn't done as well in the movie business; most of the characters of the DC universe are simply too powerful in their comic form for us to feel any dramatic tension about any situation this superhero faces, and powering them down creates an implausible character. The exception is Batman, a very human character with a very gritty, real backstory, that stands up to the kind of cinematic drama modern audiences expect. The Marvel universe has gotten away with more powering-down of heroes from godlike comic form, both because there tend to be more of them (so no one character has to carry a whole team), and because the general moviegoing public is less familiar with Marvel comics. That can't be plausibly done with Superman. We know Superman. He's one of the most recognizable superheroes in pop culture. We know his powers, the speed, the strength, the laser vision, the hurricane breath. We can't limit those powers and realistically expect an audience to play along. A movie, or even a scene, in which he's anything less than \"super\", no matter how little chance an ordinary human in his place would have, breaks the WSD.\n\nThat right there is pretty much the best way to create dramatic suspense around an omnipotent hero character. The hero will likely be just fine no matter what, so it's hard to feel nervous about them. Instead, make us like a squishy little human, then put them in the middle of the battle royale. All of a sudden the hero's fighting with one arm tied behind their back, limited in what powers they can use that won't fry the human, where they're allowed to be and for how long without the villain getting too good a chance at crushing the human, and what counts as \"defeating\" the villain, given that the human might just have emotional ties to the villain. This creates more unknowns than a straight toe-to-toe fight, especially if you've done a good job setting up the hero to be as powerful in the audience's mind as you want them to be.\n\nThe only other plausible way to create dramatic suspense is a moral dilemma, where there is no \"good\" outcome, there are only differently bad outcomes. \"Can't save 'em both\" situations, where making the decision or taking the time/action to save one kills the other, are examples. While quite effective if played straight, forcing the perfect hero to deal with the personal consequences of an imperfect world, many writers (and audiences) want to have their cake and eat it too, so this trope is too often subverted with \"well actually, I can\". That typically boils down to \"I win because you're an idiot who left this obvious loophole in your dastardly plan\", or \"I win because I'm so powerful I can break the laws of the universe as everyone understood them until just now\". Both are cliche'd beyond most usefulness, except where it's so cliche it's what your audience expects (e.g. Bond movies and their ridiculously complicated deathtraps, or superhero origin stories where the audience expects to have the physics of the real world turned upside-down as this hero discovers their true power)" } ]	2021/08/18	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58843", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44079/" ]
58,850	What I mean is black comedy (or dark humour if you want) is a subgenre of comedy that consists to make light of otherwise serious topics (in other words, serious and horrible things played for laughs). The opposite would be drama based around making dark of otherwise comical topics (in other words, funny and great things played for drama). I would call that white drama/lighthearted tragedy. Also, could you give some more or less famous examples, please? The only one I can think is Waiting For Godot (1953, Ireland/France, Samuel Beckett).	[ { "answer_id": 58851, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "Piylyihna:\n----------\n\nI would argue that the true opposite of dark humor is shameless bright optimism as exemplified by the movie [Piylyihna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piylyihna_(1960_film)). from which we get the expression \"a Piylyihna attitude.\" This genre takes the serious evils of the world and in a perfectly serious tone tells you that a positive attitude will allow you to overcome all harm and evil in the world. The works of [Horatio Alger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger) also qualify. While these styles of writing in their purest form are unpopular today, elements of them can be seen incorporated into numerous other stories where heroes overcome invincible odds and romance novels where the good person always ends up with a good life and happy marriage.\n\nCynicism is opposed by shameless optimism, humor by seriousness (which can border on absurd, but is serious nonetheless). I would argue that the dark and humorous elements of [Waiting for Godot](https://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-literature/use-of-black-humor-to-portray-characters-english-literature-essay.php) actually make it a dark comedy as well." }, { "answer_id": 59684, "author": "Amadeus", "author_id": 26047, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/26047", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Seems to me Farce may be the opposite. Black Comedy deals with serious subjects in a comedic manner, farce deals with ridiculous subjects in a serious manner; it is funny because of the deadpan delivery.\n\nMonty Python presents the most examples; the Ministry of Funny Walks is a comedy skit that treats a ridiculous topic as if it is serious; there are rules and protocols for Funny Walks." } ]	2021/08/18	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58850", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51837/" ]
58,852	A319: 200km B737: 400km vs A319: 200km. B737: 400km. Which is correct? Period or no period in a bullet point list of numbers?	[ { "answer_id": 58851, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "Piylyihna:\n----------\n\nI would argue that the true opposite of dark humor is shameless bright optimism as exemplified by the movie [Piylyihna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piylyihna_(1960_film)). from which we get the expression \"a Piylyihna attitude.\" This genre takes the serious evils of the world and in a perfectly serious tone tells you that a positive attitude will allow you to overcome all harm and evil in the world. The works of [Horatio Alger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger) also qualify. While these styles of writing in their purest form are unpopular today, elements of them can be seen incorporated into numerous other stories where heroes overcome invincible odds and romance novels where the good person always ends up with a good life and happy marriage.\n\nCynicism is opposed by shameless optimism, humor by seriousness (which can border on absurd, but is serious nonetheless). I would argue that the dark and humorous elements of [Waiting for Godot](https://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-literature/use-of-black-humor-to-portray-characters-english-literature-essay.php) actually make it a dark comedy as well." }, { "answer_id": 59684, "author": "Amadeus", "author_id": 26047, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/26047", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "Seems to me Farce may be the opposite. Black Comedy deals with serious subjects in a comedic manner, farce deals with ridiculous subjects in a serious manner; it is funny because of the deadpan delivery.\n\nMonty Python presents the most examples; the Ministry of Funny Walks is a comedy skit that treats a ridiculous topic as if it is serious; there are rules and protocols for Funny Walks." } ]	2021/08/18	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58852", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/51795/" ]
58,855	I'm currently writing a YA novel, and one of my sublots is a romance between the protagonist (A) and another supporting character (B). I introduce the two to each other early on, and they start out as friends before they are forced to team up with each other later on in the plot. There are a few other major male characters, but she specifically falls in love with B later on in the novel. However, I'm worried that readers will suspect this in the beginning, when A and B meet, and especially when they team up and spend a lot of time around each other. I'm trying my best to avoid the "instalove" trope that's common in modern YA literature, but I still feel like the romance in my novel is going to be very predictable.	[ { "answer_id": 58857, "author": "Mary", "author_id": 44281, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44281", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "What is the obstacle to their falling in love? That is what it takes to make it an actual subplot, which needs conflict. It has to be a convincing reason, too, both to provide drama, and to make it less predictable.\n\nAlternatively, it can be, not a subplot, but a complication to the main plot. They fall in love, but this means the demands on their time are more demanding, and the danger of loss is greater. Being predictable may work perfectly if its effect is to raise the main conflict." }, { "answer_id": 58858, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 46563, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/46563", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "More ways than grains of sand on a beach:\n-----------------------------------------\n\nThere is no end to the number of ways you can pitch your romance so it doesn't feel predictable or inevitable. If you go fantasy/sci fi, then you even get into exotic reasons. Let's just throw a few out; less as suggestions and more as examples to get you thinking.\n\n* One of them is obviously not into the other: Character A has a disturbing body odor, or B has halitosis. Whenever A sees C, she gets all soft in the knees, and B constantly describes his sexual conquests while seeming to be unaware how offensive it might be. You allude to their future romance while squashing all romantic impulses between the two. Then, later, when the underlying obstacles are removed, they start seeing each other while already having a friendship/established history.\n* One or both of them is bisexual: I prefer gender ambiguity, so all my characters are potential partners to all others. That way there can be multiple layers of sexual tension. If A is attracted to girl C and so is B, there can be a rivalry between the two. Later, when C is out of the picture (married to Prince Ruprecht or whatever) their rivalry seems silly and they bond over it. And if the reader thinks B likes boys, they won't assume he also likes girls until his first awkward moves on character A later (and A might be as surprised as your readers).\n* One or both of them has a severe conflict with the romance: Character A or B is engaged (this is a trope, yes). One of them is in a committed relationship which melts down at some point, opening the way for more. The two HAD a relationship, but B has betrayed/tricked/lied to A at some point in an effort to force a closer relationship, and B must rebuilt trust. Or A's brother raped B's sister, and A is covering for her brother - and no matter how well they get along, it seems impossible (either because of A's guilt or B's knowledge). One of them already has kids (or is a monk/nun) and makes it clear they have no interest in a romantic relationship." }, { "answer_id": 58861, "author": "Mr. Boy", "author_id": 44399, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44399", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "You could, as a trivial device, introduce a storyline or even a conversation early on where one expresses interest, or the topic comes up \"her maybe we should date\" and it is strongly rejected.\n\nHowever that \"they do after all\" seems equally cliche. I might suggest that this sort of thing IS quite predictable in real life. It's OK for readers to be wondering early on." }, { "answer_id": 58862, "author": "Mr. Boy", "author_id": 44399, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44399", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "Perhaps one is involved (or has been historically) with a close friend or relative of the other. Or has just come out of a serious relationship, or has relationship issues from their past and \"isn't looking\" for romance." } ]	2021/08/19	[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/58855", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/49552/" ]