: Re: Writing a character who is an expert in something that I can't know I'm writing a story where the main character comes back from the dead. The character is fully lucid, knowledgeable and articulate

If this character comes back from the dead in a fantasy universe of your own creation, then you can invent whatever you want that advances your story.

If this story is set in the real world, then I don't see how you can have the character say anything about the afterlife without either referencing a real religion, or pointedly not referencing any real religion. Like, if you were writing a novel about politics set in a real country in the present time, I think it would be very hard to say "I'm not going to discuss any real political issues".

Similarly, if you say that after death everyone, regardless of what they did in this life, goes to one great drunken orgy in the sky, obviously people of many religions are going to react to that. If you say that people are reincarnated that's going to put off Christians. If you say that there is a paradise and a place of torment you're going to put off Hindus. Etc.

How people will react depends on how you present the story. If I read a story where star ships travel faster than light, I know this is impossible according to current understanding of physics, but usually I just go along with it for the story. In the same vein, I'm a fundamentalist Christian, but I've read stories with versions of eternity that totally contradict Christianity and I've had no problem going along with the story just fine. Unless I get the sense that the story is deliberately attacking my beliefs, rather than just inventing a fictional universe for the sake of a good story, I'm not offended or insulted.

But if you're in a fantasy universe, or if you present your vision of the afterlife as fantasy, then, as I say, you can just make up whatever you want and whatever works in your story. The problem isn't being an "expert" on something, because you're making up everything.

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: Create looping patterns within the dialog, such as the order that people speak, and little mannerisms within their speech. Then repeat the pattern a few times. You don't need to be too rigid

@Annie587

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: Re: Writing a character who is an expert in something that I can't know I'm writing a story where the main character comes back from the dead. The character is fully lucid, knowledgeable and articulate

More posts by @Annie587

: Create looping patterns within the dialog, such as the order that people speak, and little mannerisms within their speech. Then repeat the pattern a few times. You don't need to be too rigid

: Dialog problems with a character with only one name? I have a character who starts as a low servant caste and rises up through society. While plotting, I never bothered to give her more than

: How do I ratchet down expectations in a genre that seems to have gone gonzo? I've done worldbuilding and extensive plotting for a Book 1 based around a "detective" (not a literal detective

: Archetype or Stereotype? After feedback on character design for my visual novel, my grizzled Noir Detective is drifting into an Old Jazz Musician. There's a reason I post the artwork: what

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