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Do your research, but only after the first draft
The first draft is usually written to be butchered anyway. A big problem in writing is being too precious with your first draft, and not changing major problems because you don't want to redo the work. Kill two birds with one stone, and do the research specifically to poke holes in your first draft.
This ...
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I am not a writer, but an avid reader.
Contrary to the other answers, I find it quite ok, and it would come over right as you wanted for me. I'm also sure I have seen it being used that way in many books.
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That might get corrected to a question mark by a copy editor, thinking it is a typo. Readers might not realize it is intentional, either, and just think it is a typo. It isn't the most effective way of conveying what you wish to convey.
I would reword the question so it is definitely a statement.
I hope you have a damn good reason for being here.
You ...
answered Dec 24 '19 at 11:07
Amadeus-Reinstate-Monica
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Of course you can. Orthography serves you as the author in your efforts to accurately convey the narrative. A question mark there would convey the wrong thing.
Not all sentences that start with question-words are questions, anyway. Particularly when the dialogue should not be inflected as a question would, it’s doubly useful to avoid cuing the reader to ...
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It's often clumsy and artificial for a character to make references to their own race in a first-person or limited-third-person narrative, because most people don't often actively think about the color of their own skins, unless some situation forces them to. But you're depicting a situation in which almost anyone would be forced to ponder their own race, so ...
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If you haven't read "Watchmen" it's a graphic novel the put much of it's world building lore documents at the end of each installment (As it was originally sold as a multipart comic book series, this would be after the conclusion of each issue's story). If you placed each Lore Page between the end of each chapter, it could work. It might be best to pad ...
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English sarcasm is primarily conveyed through tone
A great deal of vocal communication is done through tone and body language, rather than the words themselves. These features are generally lost in writing.
"Bob, I thought I heard some crying in the well."
"Right."
Now, when Bob said "Right", did he mean "I don't believe you", "correct", or "thank ...
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Proper nouns are capitalized in English. In this world, fairy is not a proper noun and should not be capitalized.
American is a capitalized noun because the word is derived from the proper noun America.
Analogously, fairies should be capitalized if they come from a specific land called Fairy.
On the other hand, if there are a group of species that are ...
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I've had to do some research into this myself - especially for the fantasy/sci-fi genre it's easy to want to create the most unique names possible. But it's also easy to fall into the trap of creating names TOO unique or confusing to follow. In my opinion, it's a great idea. And can be a powerful tool if used in the right way. But in naming characters, be it ...
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Hi Rebecca that is a really interesting concept and should be very feasible.
Introduce the wife first, apparently as a secondary or minor character.
Introduce the husband as though seen through the wife's eyes. For example, whatever he does is witnessed or experienced by her: don't show him in isolation as that would undermine the principle.
Along the ...
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It's not usually the protagonist, but there are many stories where our preconceptions about a character are challenged. It's more common that somebody turns out to be the bad guy instead of the good guy, but the other way around works too. Often, it's more complex and the reveal is just about providing a different backstory from the one that was implied. ...
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First, drop a line about actor's dark complexion. This would serve as a hint, but not the actual plot twist yet.
Second, drop a "bomb" - a clear and unambiguous reveal of actor's race. I understand the complication here is that you have to write it from a limited 3rd person view. Also (I assume) it should happen in a scene when your character is alone in ...
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Nel here! I think that would be interesting! About the insane character... Stick with her for the first few chapters then, even if she isn't insane yet, change perspective early in the story! You can get the reader used to changing perspective if you start early in the story. Instead of titling the chapters in a way that hints what comes next, you can use ...
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Alternatively, in Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, the Principles of Newspeak are explained in an Appendix at the end - this could work too.
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First: I apologize if anything I say makes light of or dismisses mental/emotional distress. As someone who struggles with AD(H)D, someone telling you the equivalent of, "Get over it," is not helpful.
That being said: perhaps at least some of the anxiety is fear of failure masquerading itself as FOMO. You don't want to fail, so you latch onto reasons to not ...
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I started out like you, finding synonyms and working with them. But also, I look at languages that have a unique set of vowels and find their word for a feeling, noun or anything that represents my characters. Then I change them to roll easier when said out loud. One of my peoples have names inspired from arabic, one from sanskrit, one from old norse and my ...
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I tend to go for names that can lend to more memorable pet names and a general combination. I tend to model my alien societies loosely on earth cultures, so I look for common sounds and naming conventions in that language. I will play with conventions, so a race with a more militant culture might have soft sounding names while a race that is pacifistic ...
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I think if you are using Fairies as a race name (like Blacks/Whites/etc) then it should probably be capitalized. If you’re talking about fairies in general, like you would say “those white people” or “those black people” without referring to the specific race as a WHOLE, then it would be okay to put it in lowercase.
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As a general rule, it's fine to use real organizations as part of a fictional story. Your characters can eat at Burger King, volunteer with Doctors without Borders, or listen to NPR without any issues. Doing so can help ground a story in reality, and fill in readers expectations without having to add superfluous exposition.
That said, you should pay ...
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I've encountered the same issue myself while writing and here's how I've tried to deal with it (options):
1. Quickly establish the mood beforehand: Kyra's tone was flat. "God, why are you here?"
2. Describe the question's tone immediately after before continuing with dialogue: "Why are you here?" she asked flatly. "This is a bad time." (I guess this one is ...
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One technique is to read your story through and highlight phrases that pop out. Then choose one or a few and tweak them if necessary. Take your short list to your writing group for feedback.
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Third-person limited narration is telling the story in third person, from one person's point of view.
Omniscient narration is telling the story in third person, from a distanced, neutral point of view.
Note that with third-person limited, you may still write from multiple character's points of view--but not in the same scene.
If you want to tell about ...
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