@Deb2945533
Last seen: Mon 17 May, 2021
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: Re: Can the villain be introduced too late? An important aspect of my story is the dread of my villain. He is slowly built up throughout the story, with a bunch of characters here and there talking
It’s hilarious because I’m not even kidding right now: my series is the exact. Same. Way. Like, exact exact. My antagonist, The Huntress, is an immortal psycho who murdered the queen of a magical planet called Epslan, took the throne, massacred half the planet, controlled and tortured all the rest, and melted into the shadows so she was controlling everything without anyone knowing to stop a prophecy about her death from coming true. Anyway, I kind of feel obligated to answer your question.
Yes, a villain can be introduced too late, but I’m pretty sure that’s only if you’re writing a series. If you are, I think the best time to introduce a series bad guy is at the end of the first book. Any later... no. Just no.
It’s especially fun if you have your protagonist(s) think they won, and NOPE! sorry! The real bad guy is _________ HAHAHAHA! Suckers!
That’s just my opinion though. If you’re writing a single, stand alone novel, then it’s best to introduce, or at least talk about, the antagonist as soon as possible. It sounds to me like you’ve talked about him, and that’s all you really need.
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: Re: Can I use they/them pronouns in a medieval style fantasy novel? I'm writing a book and I'd really love to include a person with they/them pronouns. However, the novel takes place in a sort
Sure you can. But, you have to make it fit into your world.
You have two basic options here:
Make your society tolerant of your character's gender. Quasi-medieval doesn't have to mean precisely medieval, most fantasy worlds have some fairly drastic differences from medieval times (among others, most of them don't have the Catholic Church around - that's already a huge change.) Never to mention what the addition of magic would do to society. Viewed that way, having the world be a little more flexible re: gender than medieval times is just one change among many.
However, if you go this route, you have to make sure to set out the limits of this and make it make sense in your society. If there's a third gender around, what does that mean for gender roles? Cultural norms around marriage? Typical family structure? The legalities of inheritance? Is the overall society just more flexible as far as gender is concerned, or is it that in addition to "male" and "female" there's a specific third gender with a clearly defined societal role? (As has been the case in multiple cultures, although medieval European isn't one unless you count eunuchs). And how does your character fit into all this?
In short: worldbuilding is an absolute must if you don't want this to feel incoherent and tacked on.
Making your world intolerant, but writing a nonbinary character anyway. Trans people have existed throughout history. They've existed, and done their best to live the life they wanted, even in societies that were not at all open to the idea. (Obligatory wiki link: the Public Universal Friend is a fun example from the 18th century. Not medieval, but not exactly a trans-friendly time nonetheless.) So... just because the world around them doesn't want them to won't necessarily stop your character from going by a gender-neutral pronoun or trying to present in an ambiguous way.
If you go this route, though, you're going to have to be ready to write serious levels of prejudice. Confusion, rejection and hostility may be the order of the day. They may be ostracized, may face persecution. They may even run into difficulties with the law – "pretending" to be a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth may be illegal. They're probably going to have to constantly weigh their own safety vs living the life they want to and make some hard choices. You don't have to go entirely doom and gloom – it's quite possible your character develops a circle of tolerant friends, for instance – but, again, to some extent you need to put your money where your mouth is in order for this to seem plausible.
Finally:
Given that you've done the above and have a nonbinary person in your quasi-medieval world, I don't see a problem with using specifically singular they. For one, you're writing in modern English, some amount of translation can be assumed. For another, singular they has been used as a gender-neutral/non-gender-specific pronoun since the 14th century, so it's not exactly anachronistic.
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: Re: How to describe a setting but without making it too cliche? There is this one author technique that I find a bit cliche, which is matching the mood to the setting. This means that for example,
This technique can feel cliché when it's used clumsily for effect rather than fitting the story.
In a solid, working story, everything should fit together seamlessly, the story, the characters, the setting, the dialogue, almost as if the reader is watching you piece together a puzzle right in front of their eyes and when they see the final picture, everything is just as it should be and creates a wonderful 'ahh' moment.
If you draw in a moody sky just because the character is gloomy, but it doesn't fit the rest of the story, it'll look wrong in the final picture and the reader will see that you shoehorned it in there for effect.
Whereas, if you read a story like Hills Like White Elephants, for example, the sadness of the female character isn't conveyed by a gloomy sky (that would have been cliché). Instead, Hemingway uses a bright sunny day. Even though the weather doesn't match her mood, the heat conveys the pressure the man is putting her under (there's no shade). The sun like a spotlight on her, hounding her to make a decision. And in the far distance - the future after she makes the decision - there's a single cloud.
Of course, Hemingway is a genius and less is always more when you're starting out. Better to tell a good story plainly, and then, when you have a feel for your story and know such techniques will add rather than detract, go back in a future draft and pepper them in carefully with a fine brush.
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: Re: How to make a childish character that isn't annoying to the reader? I couldn't decide what type of dragon I wanted to write, so I decided to do a Rise of Skywalker and now my dragon is
Childish doesn't have to mean brat
One approach to childishness that isn't annoying if done right is to make the character friendly but impulsive, like Buddy in the movie Elf. Granted in that movie he's an adult, but he acts like a child. But not a mean-spirited child (brat). Instead he's extremely friendly and happy-go-lucky. But he gets into trouble because of his impulsiveness and naivete. Because of all this, he's likeable not annoying, and a very interesting character.
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: Why is writing so hard? Are there any self-help books for scientific writing? Not to make this a post complaining about my inability to write, but I'd like to understand the universal challenges
Not to make this a post complaining about my inability to write, but I'd like to understand the universal challenges people face when writing and overcome some of these common challenges. Maybe understanding how others approach these barriers to write will help me develop as a better writer.
A little bit of context: Science, as in actual science, is what I want to write personally, but I am more interested in how people overcome challenges in writing in general.
Background: I am a university student, and I have written a few papers, but I found the process always to be a struggle. I couldn't start easily, and I always took criticisms personally; my writing is quite verbose. How do people deal with these sorts of challenges?
Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences.
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: Re: Is it okay to use "It was all just a virtual world / dream" for a plot twist? I am currently writing a novel where I use "It was all just a dream" (IWAJAD) plot twist, just because
What you describe doesn't sound like "it was all just a dream". It sounds more like the completely different "dream-world quest" or "fantasy training sequence". This is when the heroes have a problem and the method to solve it just happens to be some sort of fantasy sequence. Drinking an Amazon shaman's potion to contact a helpful spirit, entering some virtual reality to reason with an AI, putting on a helmet to enter someone's dream, going on an errand in the Astral plane, Homer Simpson eating a ghost pepper... all very common things.
The reader knows in advance it's not real. But what matters is the hero can succeed or fail or have some real-world affect. If chapter one of your book is a 4-year-old in kindergarten that turns out to be a dream in chapter 2, bleh! But if we know they contacted Alti for help and this is the dream sequence she gave them ... now that's interesting. Somewhere in this class is something that can power them up, if they can find it.
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: Re: Is it okay to use "It was all just a virtual world / dream" for a plot twist? I am currently writing a novel where I use "It was all just a dream" (IWAJAD) plot twist, just because
This is a very interesting question, and by no means trivial. The IWAJAD device has been used many times in literature but often ineffectively. The trick is to make it work.
In John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and in H. P. Lovecraft's "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" we are told from the beginning that the story is a dream. Yet at the the end we are surprised by the fact again. That is effective.
J. R. R. Tolkien, in his essay "On Fairy-Stories" says "A real dream may indeed sometimes be a fairy-story of almost elvish ease and skill – while it is being dreamed. But if a waking writer tells you that his tale is only a thing imagined in his sleep, he cheats deliberately the primal desire at the heart of Faërie: the realisation, independent of the conceiving mind, of imagined wonder."
Don't cheat. Don't make the dream a deus ex machina that explains the story. You may be able to inform the reader at the end that it was a dream or hallucination, without making it part of the plot. Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is an example. The character's dream is the story itself, but the plot is very simple: he is hanged.
Another way to handle this issue to to leave the reader unsure, although the story is fantastic and requires the suspension of disbelief. Is Dante's "Divine Comedy" a dream? It is left ambiguous.
To sum up this limited explanation, IWAJAD can be an effective literary device, but it takes careful handling. Your scenario in which the protagonist has a personality change induced by a dream is (if I understand you) is not really an example of IWAJAD but instead a necessary part of the plot. I think your worries are misplaced. You should perhaps make a distinction between kinds of dreams as the Greeks did.
I'm not sure a "personality change" would be as effective as your protagonist learning something from a dream that he is able to use in the world of your novel. That is another old device that rarely fails to impress the reader when done well. We all want to believe that our dreams have meaning.
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: As someone who started writing when he was about 10 and is now a published (albeit not particularly successful) author, I consider myself quite qualified to answer this question. Not to be
As someone who started writing when he was about 10 and is now a published (albeit not particularly successful) author, I consider myself quite qualified to answer this question.
Not to be impolite, but first of all, let's be realistic:
It's very, very unlikely that anything you write at such a young age is good enough to actually be published.
This is not meant as an insult, the things I wrote at that age were certainly no better! I just want you to be realistic - unless you are an absolute statistical outlier, no publisher is going to be interested in what you write right now. This is also the reason why the people you try to impress might choose to ignore you - because they do not think that anything coming from a 12-year-old is actually worth giving attention to. And they are probably right. Trying to get anything published right now will not get you anywhere.
It is, however, not meant to discourage you from your dream. Writing now will still be a very good practice for you. People who start at a young age usually develop a better grasp of the language and its details (something I will sadly never develop for the English language, as I'm not a native speaker) and of the core principles of writing, so you are at a massive advantage later on if you keep on writing!
Another thing you can do to improve your writing and get some (safe) feedback is to show it to someone you know and trust, but who is not your friend or family. Teachers are oftentimes very qualified for that job, as they usually have enough of education to judge literature and are also not so close to you that they don't want to hurt your feelings by criticizing your writing. My German teacher, an old man who took a particular interest in the theater and writing, reviewed my early writing and gave me merciless critique - but he never told anyone else, not even my parents. Through him, I improved a lot, and I'm very thankful for that.
So my advice would be the following:
Keep on going, but keep it to yourself until you are older and confident. Show it to someone you trust but who will not pamper you to improve. Do not try to publish until you know you are actually ready. Be patient, even if it's hard.
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: Re: Can you write about a taboo topic without creating a poor image of yourself as a writer? I am thinking of writing a character that possesses the psychological phenomenon of erotophonophilia (or
different forms of literature have different audiences. what suits one audience will not suit another. write what you want to write. if you write well enough, you will find your audience.
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: Re: How do you look for words that are related to a certain culture? How do you look for words that are related to a certain culture? For example, when I want to look for all items that existed
As far as I can tell, there isn't any book or website with a complete list of what you're looking for. You might have to make your own list using the information provided by various places. Here are a few links you might find useful: www.romanaqueducts.info/technicalintro/surveyingtools.htm This is about the tools used in Ancient Rome. www.historyhit.com/what-did-the-romans-eat-food-and-drink-in-ancient-times/ This is about their food. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_technology This is a Wikipedia page on Roman technology. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_ancient_Rome The culture of Ancient Rome. relatedwords.org/relatedto/ancient%20rome This link might be especially useful. It lists terms and phrases related to or used in Ancient Rome.
I would also suggest reading some books written about Ancient Rome. Reading those will definitely give you the information you need, because of the language and terms used.
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: Re: How to write a scene in third person limited when the POV character is not in it? I am studying the third person POV for my novel. I read about the third person limited POV. I don't understand
The simplest answer is that you don't show that scene. You have the main character learn about it after it happened, or you just leave it out of the story.
Deciding to write in third person limited is a decision to constrain yourself. Constraints are valuable in art because art is all about making decisions, and if you have fewer decisions to make, you may be able to make them better. They also force you to problem-solve, and the hard solutions end up being more interesting to the reader than the easy ones.
Ultimately, though, it's your story and you can do what you want. On the principle that there's nothing quite like an example, the Harry Potter series is almost entirely third person limited to Harry's point of view, but there are a number of sections that either use a different character's POV or take a more omniscient perspective.
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: Publishing of Collection of Short Stories I have a collection of short stories--48 in total, a word count of 80,000 and 156 pages. Regarding publication, is such a collection likely to be too
I have a collection of short stories--48 in total, a word count of 80,000 and 156 pages. Regarding publication, is such a collection likely to be too large? If I were to split it into two collections, is it likely that I would receive a more positive response from a publisher?
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: Re: Creating a unique spin on a nuclear apocalypse? Basically, my story follows a group of 6 people (and 1 mutant human) exploring a barren wasteland of what used to be the USA. The world they
Some things come to mind:
Why a nuclear holocaust?
Keep in mind humanity is fucked in this setting. This means no random deus-ex-machina, no hope, no ideals. Why wouldn't your characters just rape and burn everybody they find? Also, such a setting is pretty lame since every conflict almost automatically resolves around "where to find water, and after that where to find food". This sounds boring. There is nothing to do. I would not want to play this in a video game, neither in a PNP game, why is it good for a story?
Science fiction is fantasy!
Have a look at the Shadowrun universe, especially the parts about Washington D.C.
After a big [nuclear bomb / explosion? ] killed a dragon there, a rift opened and all sorts of spirits, specters and creeping horrors emerged from that. The whole city is a nuclear wasteland with toxic sewers and the like. But: life outside the zone goes on as usual ( a bit like in "stalker" ), which means there are companies and the like who have a reasonable interest in data / resources that are still somewhere in the ruins! Also, a normal life outside means there is a flow of technology coming into the zone, so you have certain options of building something up in your story ( a BBEG who collects gold=? a merenary who tracks and hunts down survivors for cash=? ). The fact that this is high-cyberpunk mixed with magic makes it unique in a way. I'm not saying "go for magic", but think about whether you would build the world less on reality and more on fantasy. Maybe you want to go for the classical "4 chosen souls" trope and have your characters fullfill their destiny.
[ classic doesn't mean i like it - there is no destiny imho lol ]
Maybe the story is on another planet where there are fast growing, intellectual plant-hybrids (like in the darkover stories, kind of), maybe a super-ai rebuilds a "society" in the means of replicating humans and simulating their behaviour by having them fight for tribal means or food.
Don't force yourself into this genre
You don't need to go for the classic "nuclear bomb" setting at all costs, do you? As meantioned in my first statement, this setting is hard and unforgiving, and it's easy to make it sound unreasonable or unlogical or simply to overdramatise the characters.
The "The Last of us" setting is meant to read like your classic zombie apocalypse, but with the twist that the civilisation itself seems to be intact, leading to technology and political setups in the world. A world of tribes is much more flexible than a world of scavenges. Remember: Atomic bombs cause EMP -> no electricity, never ever.
In fact, a modern age nuclear war is probably to be fought in space (in the stratosphere), because a nuke blown up in the stratosphere IS an EMP. Maybe go for this? The searching for the holy electricity, or rather technology, since after the blackout almost 70% of all knowledge was gone, and around 80 % of world's population died due to malnutrition. This would be kind of a Rimworld setup.
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: Re: Is there a known technique for giving your readers chills? Some of my favorite stories send shivers through my body every time I reread them. For example, "Bullet in the Brain" by
For just about any communication, the connection to the emotional(physical) level -- to give the reader chills -- is made through lighter emotional connections. To read the level of Immersion, as it is also called -- that place where frisson and sensory experiences -- requires clear writing, but not plain. Emotional without being purple and soggy.
...and the use of the emotional experience in description, narration, and dialogue if you can fit it in without sounding silly. Want feelings of alarm, use metaphors in clusters that hint at missing out on something or not getting some desire fulfilled.
Find and read a paper titled "Spiderman? Sure!" for more information and leads to this area. Also, search out and explored VADs (Valence, Arousal, Dominance).
Also, the book Predictably Irrational.
Words have power, and there are lists of powerful words out there.
But even in the mild vocabularies, words have power. Like yawn. Yawn isn't a command or even a verb. No one is yawning in front of you, so this is fiction. It's good. Yawn is the name of an action, a common event; mundane, easy, safe. Yawning happens all the time. Yawning isn't even a discomfort. Some people like to yawn. So, yawn offers no threat, no cohesion, nothing. Yet, when one person yawns, other people yawn. It happens. There is no, why. It just happens, and when yawning people spread their yawns on the page, you don't have to see them, do you?
No, you don't. You'll yawn in an empty room, just like we were all there together. Just as your emotions are with you now, and it's a wonder that this is questioned, when you have never had a moment, the space of an inhale, in which you did not have a correlating emotional response.
I hope this helps so many years later.
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: Re: Not wanting to "spoil" a story due to lack of skill I have a story that is dear to me and that I would very much want to write about. However, I don't have lots of experience in writing
There are plenty of cases of authors rewriting stories. Arthur C. Clarke co-wrote the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was based on his short story "The Sentinel". Piers Anthony wrote a novelization of Total Recall, which was based on Phillip K. Dick's story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale". Isaac Asimov turned his novelette "Nightfall" into a novel. The novel Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes started out as a short story. Agatha Christie had several versions of And Then There Were None, although that is the only title I'm willing to include in my post. The Twilight Zone had several episodes that were redone in different incarnations of the show, such as "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" on the original 60s run being about anti-Communism while the 2003 Twilight Zone had a version of it about anti-terrorism. Battlestar Galactica was reimagined.
And those are some of just the ones we know about. How many stories started out as something else, and only the last version was released?
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: Re: Asking about writing techniques Could you please help me..I have ideas of writings and stories, but..when I come to start writing, I can't find what I need to write the plot and that's leads
You already know how to write stories.
You've been listening to them your whole life, and maybe telling a few.
Simply sit and start writing your stories.
Then rewrite your stories to make them better.
Then keep writing and rewriting your stories.
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: Re: What is the relationship between legend and epic? My superficial understandings of these terms are quite distinct: a legend is told and retold, exists independently of a particular telling, is
According to WikiDiff: "As nouns, the difference between legend and epic is that legend is a story of unknown origin describing plausible but extraordinary past events while epic is an extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, celebrating the feats of a deity or demigod (heroic epic) or other legendary or traditional hero."
According to YourDictionary, "Epic literature comes from the oral traditions of ancient civilizations. Epic poems have been created throughout history, up to the present day. Epic poems are included in all three genres of poetry, which include lyric, dramatic, and narrative", such as:
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer
"Hiawatha" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Epic example: "He who has seen everything, I will make known (?) to the lands. I will teach (?) about him who experienced all things,... alike, Anu granted him the totality of knowledge of all. He saw the Secret, discovered the Hidden, he brought information of (the time) before the Flood. He went on a distant journey, pushing himself to exhaustion, but then was brought to peace. He carved on a stone stela all of his toils, and built the wall of Uruk-Haven, the wall of the sacred Eanna Temple, the holy sanctuary."- Epic of Gilgamesh
According to Literary Terms, "A legend (/ˈlejənd/) is a story about human events or actions that has not been proved nor documented in real history. Legends are retold as if they are real events and were believed to be historical accounts. They usually tell stories about things that could be possible, so both the storyteller and the audience may believe they are true. Its meaning stems from the Medieval Latin term legenda, meaning "things to be read." and from the Latin legendus." It goes on to say that "Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur is the most famous and influential collection of tales in literature detailing the legend of King Arthur. "
Let's validate the differentiation by applying them to a pair of examples:
Legend: "Le Morte d'Arthur" is a collection of stories "of unknown origin describing plausible but extraordinary past events" that was compiled by Sir Thomas Malory.
Epic: "The Canterbury Tales" "is an extended narrative poem" composed by Chaucer.
The definition seems to hold up.
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: What is the literary term for a technique where expectation is built up by hinting at the future? I've been reading a fantasy-novel series where the author cleverly seeds expectation in the
I've been reading a fantasy-novel series where the author cleverly seeds expectation in the reader. This works as a hook to continue reading.
It's an audio-book, so I can't easily riffle through to find an instance. I'll give a rather bland and generic example of my own devising in the hope that you can understand.
John thought to himself, "There must be a way to get out of this awful situation"
"but there isn't", he concluded, "If only ..."
The important factor is that earlier in the story, Mary has been shown
to have some knowledge or ability that would help John. We know it
but John doesn't.
This builds tension for the reader. Will they meet? Will John's problem be solved? Will they fall in love?
What is the term that fits this? Is it a blanket term, or are there subdivisions of it?
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: Re: Is there any word or phrases that can replace greed and greedy? Apparently, greed and greedy are weak words in poetry, so you can't use them, but what other words would you use? The pirate
The English in this example is not idiomatic, and "greed" cannot be used as a verb, as appears attempted here. Also, we generally avoid repetition (greed/greedy; adventurers/adventure) unless it serves a purpose. Maybe better:
Pirates lust after gold, and
Adventurers are greedy in their quest for excitement ...
Or: Adventurers grasp at the thrill of their quest
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: Re: How to show a character with multiple personalitites? To preface this, I have seen the question multiple personalities characters speech in text and I feel that my question is different enough,
I would write...
"My name is Eben - who are you?" inquired the old man.
"I'm Suoti," the younger girl replied.
You can dodge the question of identity by referring to the body's physical characteristics until it's apparent that the one body hosts multiple personalities.
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: Re: My writing is stiff at the start, I think I need an attitude adjustment My story is raring to be put on paper. But the first paragraph, indeed the first chapter, is stiff as a board. Way
I don't know of any rules which say you've go to write your novel from start to end. I tend to start with a few key scenes - I'll have been playing them over in my mind for a while so they're basically kind of bursting to get out. And then I kind of work my way out from those.
But that might just be me.
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: Re: How do I create a mysterious character? What personality traits and ways does he need to be mysterious? What attitudes must he have to be so? How do I create a mysterious character? What
You'd be surprised by how many people think you are mysterious if you:
do more listening than talking
Don't talk about yourself (not because you have something to hide or
fear, you just don't think it's necessary, or you think you will bore
people or you don't like being the center of attention)
Ignoring/not fully answering a question about your oddities
I've seen humble men, hippy men, moody men, or brooding men, called "mysterious." Mostly men actually....but as a woman, I've experienced this comment about me a lot.
A key trait for being mysterious is just simply not being open about yourself to others or your hobbies. Not in an antisocial or aggressively protective way. Being an introvert is also part of it as I have never seen a mysterious extrovert depicted.
This character isn't fitting into the standard world view of acceptableness either in looks, music taste, clothing choice, bragging about one's self or things, or profession, etc.. Still, it is not talked about, and when people do talk about, the character doesn't elaborate.
The paragon of this trait is the loner antisocial person who not only doesn't speak much on anything, but they fail at basic communication, which I think is a poor way to portray this trait. This character is guarded but noticeably so in a way that repels others rather then helps them by inviting them.
Empaths get this label by allowing others to come to them, listening, keeping or forgetting secrets confided to them. They speak little or not at all about themselves but not to push others away. They just don't believe they are interesting enough.
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: Re: A blog on sexual abuse and harrassment So I'm planning to start a blog where I write about sexual abuse, sexual harrassment and also domestic violence. Pretty heavy stuff right? That's why I'm
You might want to consider type of traffic and level of engagement you are looking for. If you prefer to write peacefully in relative obscurity, you can use a platform like wordpress.com or blogger.com and turn off comments. On the other hand, if you are looking for community and engagement you could use a platform like medium.com which has a very active community of sexual abuse and assault survivors.
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: Re: A blog on sexual abuse and harrassment So I'm planning to start a blog where I write about sexual abuse, sexual harrassment and also domestic violence. Pretty heavy stuff right? That's why I'm
A couple of thoughts.
If I see a book or a movie that is advertised as being about an unpleasant subject, sexual abuse or racism or Nazi concentration camps or whatever, I generally avoid it. It's certainly not that I condone such things. Of course they're bad. But that's the point. I know they're bad. I don't want to wallow in the misery of it. I don't need to be reminded how bad they are. I already know. So I'm not really interested in reading a novel or whatever that will remind me of how terrible this thing is. It will just make me depressed. Which leads me to ...
I've been involved in various political and social causes in my life. After some debating in my mind, I think I won't name them to avoid getting into a side debate about whether I was on the right or wrong side of each of these issues, let's stick with discussing your issue. Let's just call them A and B.
Anyway, I noticed that when I attended meetings of groups advocating A, the discussion was all about how terrible the current state of affairs was. Speakers would talk about how bad it was. They'd explain why the current state of affairs was bad and why we need change. Attendees would discuss why our ideas were better than opposing ideas. The members would sit around and complain about how bad things were. Everyone would get very upset and depressed. And then the meeting would end and they'd go home.
In groups advocating B, on the other hand, the conversation was always about, What can we do to change things? What kind of laws could we propose to fix the problem? What kind of laws could we actually get passed versus proposing laws that would promptly get voted down and accomplish nothing? How could we get candidates who were on our side elected? Which candidates should we support? What sort of advertising campaigns should we conduct to convince the general public? How could we influence the media? Etc. We almost never discussed why the current situation was bad and why we wanted to change it. Everyone there agreed on what was wrong and what needed to change, so there was no point discussing that. The only time we'd talk about such things was when we were talking about how to influence the general public.
Group B was far more successful at creating change than Group A.
Do you see where I'm going?
I don't think there are many people out there who think sexual abuse is a good thing. You probably don't need to devote much effort to convincing people that sexual abuse is bad.
Maybe you need to convince people to be motivated enough to do something about it. There are lots of things in the world that I think are bad that I have never done a thing about, because I devote my resources such as they are to issues that are more important to me. As one person who doesn't have a lot of money or political power, it's hard enough for me to make a difference on one issue, never mind on every issue that's out there. So you have to convince some number of people that this issue is important enough for them to make it the issue that they will work on.
Second, talk about practical things that they can do. Give money, perhaps. Volunteer with organizations working on this issue. Whatever.
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: Re: My characters parents are dead, what now? In my book, my main character has unfortunately lost her parents. But before the plot, I have nothing. I don't want to do an orphanage, foster homes,
In orphanages one doesn't always get adopted and will continue to be raised by the orphanage until they come of age to leave it. This can however change the personality it depends on whom she knows and whom (if any) she makes friends with. You could have her go on a adventure to disavow the death of her parents for a time and process her grief.
Ultimately you have one thing that has made a defining impact on the character and her personality now what else is she suppose to have? Build backwards the reasons from there and it maynot come from one sit down maybe months or years later you'll find the it thing as to why she is this way.
For instance say apart of her persona is self reliance which she'll need to avoid getting picked up by someone noticing she's parentless. Does she remain in the house till it's condemned by the authorities because she sucks at up keep?
You will have to figure out how she avoids everyone knowing she's not alive someone knew this girl existed prior to her death and people talk so if no one rolls into town to claim her everyone is going to wonder why not and will take action themselves she'd have to literally run away then its your job to narratively to explain why because she doesn't know about these future parents unless she's insane or sees visions and has some Joan of Arc visions that tell her a mysterious family will pluck her from the obscure which then could be anyone and you've got her doe eyed for the first people she sees and they could be axe murderers!
Time period matters if you don't have that down yet look into different time periods for the poor children she could go to a poor or alms house be cared for or put to back breaking work. In other eras she might bounce from home to home with lots of other kids their caretakers more like a toss up between duty bound strick people who aim to teach her a useful skill but by useful I mean dull like dishwasher, seamstress, or maid or she could get the for profit caregiver that locks her in the basement till she comes of age they can kick her out while collecting the payouts for her being alive and falsely claiming what she learns.
Your what do I do is too broad you have to look at
Her age - this will determine if she's willed enough
Her parent's attentiveness/abandonment - this will tell if she's got skills to exist far outside someone's care w/o death. A 3rd generation suburban girl isn't going to thrive on the Appalachian Trail for instance not even if she went to girl scout camp.
If you don't know who she is at the start then whom is she when she meets these new parents?
Why is she willing to give them a chance or them her?
What are the strength and weaknesses mentally, spiritually/personal soul, physically, socially?
Greif, physical, perceived, emotional abandonment harm and change people. Here are some movies for help on abandoned or near abandoned children. Note how they are effected (some more deeply then others) about the physical or connection loss of parents in no particular order try to imagine your character as anyone in these films if it helps figure out traits that will bestow upon her for going through the whole or parts of the plots.
(1) Pippy Long stocking - yes we all know it happy girl gets into trouble but really look at it she's abandoned!
(2) Winter's Bone (Hulu) - a teen with a dead beat mother who if she did die wouldn't change how alone and left in burden caring for her siblings is told her also dead beat father better get found or they lose everything she embarks to find him to save her pitiful shack of a house for her family. Grit, self reliance, tactfulness, stubbornness, sacrifice, perseverance,
(3) The lion woman (Netflix) - she struggles to deal with what her life is and find a way to thrive on being like everyone else. Alone while being surrounded, self reliance, determination.
(4) The Motherland Fort Salem (TV series Hulu) - the main character is still traumatized by her mother's death this character is walking grief and trying in a lot of wrong ways to solve it while being in the military's. Greif stricken failing at life. Each girl is dealing with family and dysfunction just some more with family in the picture then others.
(5) I kill giants (hulu) - girl would rather fight skyscraper high monsters then deal with her own life. Greif and imagination dropped into high gear.
(6) IO last on earth (Netflix) (I think boring but she is alone and parentless) self reliance in the face of sure death. self reliance, hopelessness, team work, sacrifice, abandonment
(7) The girl with all the gifts (Netflix) - Alone but with strangers you get to see child who grew up with abandonment yet still strived to be normal but it turns bad. Abandonment, self actualization
(8) The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane - While this one is the no parent, in hiding from society, and girl living alone like your character it is a dark movie. With a pedo creepy guy whose onto her ruse but it does show a pretty dark and possibly more realistic setting to what can happen in what you want for your character as far as no parents, no orphanage, and no one knows she's without. I am placing the warning in it because the creep be creepy and nothing in the movies things set that part up. Self reliance, self protection.
(9) How I live now - multiple teens abandoned after a nuclear apocalypse they do try to hide at first, then get taken in, then their lives get worse and blows apart. Sacrifice, self reliance, others above self,
(10) First they killed my father (Netflix) - a young girl is separated from her family during the war and she is forced to survive her life getting worse and worse before it gets better. Abandonment, strife, perseverance, adrift.
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: Scrivener challenge with page numbers I am having a challenge with getting page numbering to work in Scrivener (Windows). I have set Page Header/Footer checked for "Not on page 1", unchecked
I am having a challenge with getting page numbering to work in Scrivener (Windows). I have set Page Header/Footer checked for "Not on page 1", unchecked on "Count page 1". Here is my problem.
I have each chapter (fiction novel) in a separate folder. I want Scrivener to automatically paginate at the bottom. The field by Footer keeps defaulting to "Enter for page number". I tried but that seems to necessitate MANUALLY entering that on each page! I put it at the end of the chapter, hoping foolishly that it would auto paginate. It gave the correct page number, but only inserted it on the last page.
Not sure what I'm missing.... Thanks in advance for any assistance!
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: Re: How to improve my Dialogue Writing? This is one area of writing that I find myself struggling a lot. I usually divide my chapters into scenes and each scene has a goal(s) that I have to
A technique I have found for this is to get my computer to read the dialogue back to me.
Hearing the dialogue out loud, rather than simply reading it, draws my attention to parts that don't sound natural.
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: Re: I can't write without an inspiration I've been writing a book for almost a year now. But it takes so long because I have to wait for "inspiration". Sometimes I will get an idea that makes
So who is this Grace person? What is she stealing... a tin of beans or a mink coat? And, more important... why is she stealing it?
I like to think I 'know' my characters... who they are and what they would do in any particular situation (though they do occasionally surprise me!)
Think of twenty questions about her: what does she like to eat, what music does she listen to, where did she go to school, who are her friends. You don't have to tell us about it directly but you ought to know.
Once you've done that, hopefully Grace is a much more 'real' person and you might care about why she's steeling something.
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: Re: I can't write without an inspiration I've been writing a book for almost a year now. But it takes so long because I have to wait for "inspiration". Sometimes I will get an idea that makes
Are you absolutely certain that your writing is bad when you're not inspired? Or is this just what it feels like to you at the time?
For me personally, the best writing advice I ever heard (although I've sadly forgotten the source) was from a published author who said this: although he himself could tell the difference between the parts of the story he wrote when inspired and the parts he forced out to meet his daily word count... none of his readers could.
So, here's an exercise: during one of your uninspired times, sit down and force yourself to write. Turn off the internet, remove all distractions from your surroundings, and tell yourself that you will not do anything else until you have put X words down on paper. (I use 300, myself - it's small enough to seem achievable even if every sentence is a pain - but amounts may vary.) Once you're done, leave the scene and come back to it once enough time has passed that it's not really present in your memory anymore (a few weeks, maybe).
Does it still seem terrible to you?
If it does, try showing it - together with one of the scenes you wrote in the full throes of inspiration - to someone. (A friend willing to read your writing, a writing teacher, whatnot.) Do they agree that there's a real difference in quality?
If so, I point you towards @ArtichokeAndAnchovyPizza 's answer about trying to suss out what the one scene is missing that the other one has. But it's actually quite possible that you'll find that the scene you forced is fine, that you can write at a good quality even without inspiration.
In general... yes, writing without inspiration sucks. It's a slog. But fact of the matter is that if you want to write longer works, and absolutely if you want to write professionally, you are almost certainly going to have to learn how to do it. Inspiration isn't something you can rely on being there whenever you need it - or for every scene you need! - and only writing when you're really excited about it will result in you writing very slowly and your stories often never reaching completion.
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: Can I get in trouble for discrimination by writing an epic fantasy based on Medieval England like Lord of the Rings? The Lord of the Rings has been criticized by actor John Boyega for having
The Lord of the Rings has been criticized by actor John Boyega for having every character be white. I don't believe Boyega understands the background of the series (i.e. that it's based on medieval England).
If I were to write my own epic fantasy based on medieval England, would I also get in trouble for discrimination?
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