New answers tagged fiction
7
Could you? Possibly, it might count as fair use, but I'm not a lawyer and this isn't a stackexchange for legal advice. If you really want to, ask a real lawyer.
Should you? No, probably not. Using this specific text doesn't seem like it would add anything to your story that you couldn't add by rewriting a similar paragraph in your own words.
If you were ...
2
Alternatively, in Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, the Principles of Newspeak are explained in an Appendix at the end - this could work too.
0
You're sort of tricking the reader, inasmuch as you're subverting their assumption about the character. Whether or not it works lies entirely in the reveal, which could be as simple as merely stating at the end that he is a black man working in a minstrel show, perhaps after saying "the black gave way to brown" (or similar phrasing) as he removed his makeup.
...
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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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Putting the race of the Actor doesn't fit in the paragraph that you show us. If you do put the race of the Actor, it would feel rushed and forced. You could put it in a different paragraph or you could just put it at the beginning of your story. (Sorry, that was vague. Sorry, if this isn't helpful.)
3
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 ...
2
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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I'd look up the Eddie Anderson, an African American most famous for portraying Jack Benny's valet Rochester van Jones in the "Jack Benny Program" (radio and tv show) and was one of the highest payed actors in the world (and a fan favorite). There is a famous joke where he was complaining about having to be "the radio" for Benny when the car's radio went out ...
4
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 ...
6
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 ...
1
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 ...
1
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 ...
1
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 ...
2
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 ...
0
I've heard that you need to discover your character's strengths and weaknesses, motivations, and their backstory. Get to know your characters and what makes them special. Good characters should have these things directly influencing each other. If you understand what makes your character who they are, what motivates them, ect., then you can understand how ...
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Depending on where your line is for "too far", different types of horror could be played with. Like maybe you write something that psychologically scary (a mind-screw) and you avoid the gory physical horror. You could also imply the horror, setting up suspense and then giving just enough info to alert the reader of what's happening without describing it in ...
1
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 ...
2
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. ...
0
The key to horror is that fear comes from knowing that something is wrong but not knowing what it is or what you can do about it. You don't need to gross out or shock your reader. But you do what them to be nervous that you'll do just that at any moment.
The Saw franchise is one of the most overtly grotesque horror franchises out there. But the horror doesn'...
0
Pick a phrase from your novel that is significant.
'The Day Before'
Worried it doesn't stand out? Try restructuring it to make it slightly more unique - and make sure that still fits.
'Before The Day'?
Bend your perspective.
'After Yesterday'?
Run the words through www.thesaurus.com and see if something new pops.
'Auld Lang Syne'?
Make something up
'...
1
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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Let's find out. Merriam Webster is an expert on spelling and capitalization and they say that "fairy" is not capitalized.
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Think of it as a utopia that went wrong. So, a nation that was supposed to be a great society that got corrupted and became evil. (Although a bit of a loose metaphor, The Soviet Union could kind of be considered “dystopian.” The Bolsheviks Planned on created a wonderful society free of poverty and suffering, and then Stalin turned it into one of the ...
1
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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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 ...
-2
Honestly, a person is a person. Think of a personality, then give it boobs. Just like magic, you have a female character.
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To be honest, I think you should make it scary without holding back. At least in my opinion, getting scared at a book isn't easy to do, so try your best to make it as scary as possible.
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I lost the count of how many times United Nation has been used in all sorts of fiction. IMO as long as you are not defaming them you are fine.
As regards to obfuscating names as Arcanist Lupus had suggested, I would recommend to exercise more caution since Jack Daniel's cease and desist letter. A franchise chain might get their pants in the knot even if ...
0
Of course it can still count as fantasy! Fantasy doesn’t have to include magic, it just includes elements that don’t exist in our world. For example, let’s say the story is about a knight that slays a dragon. There’s no magic in that scenario, but dragons aren’t real, so it’s fantasy.
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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 ...
-1
The problem is that different people react differently, there will always be people who can stomach anything, while others have nightmares from Goosebumps.
When it comes to stuff, made to make you not want to read it, I think Junji Ito is the closest. Since Beastars gets updates only weekly and AoT basically never, I had a window to fill with good stuff. ...
0
I'd say, steer clear of the splatter porn as others here have said. I think the most effective direction you could go in would be to go for a "the fourth wall will not protect you" kind of vibe. Writing things that can genuinely happen - children or loved ones getting kidnapped, overly-aggressive diseases with awful consequences, that kind of thing - can ...
0
user16226 is right about anticipation versus "splatter porn". Let's look at one of the classic masters of horror, H. P. Lovecraft.
Let's look at his only full-length novel, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. In that story, we start with a mystery, what appears to be basically a simple missing persons case but that soon develops some definitely mysterious ...
0
If Maria systematically bakes cakes for him then it does not sound like sarcasm. If she never does or cannot even imagine baking one then it does.
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One thing that I have found that helps me is, anytime I have dialogue, I say it out loud without any additional words like "he said" and "she said" to see if the dialogue alone feels real. If the dialogue feels real and not silly when I say it out loud, then I can enhance the meaning and experience of the dialogue with things like "she muttered" and "folded ...
3
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 ...
5
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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