General Writer's Block thread

Well you can do good horror with the girl noticing changes in her mentality and habits, transformation slowly creeping in and so on. It can be very interesting story.

The idea reminds me of the classic Kafka story, The Metamorphosis. It isn't a horror story, but perhaps it might be an interesting read (if you haven't already). I'm not much interested in horror, so I fear I can't help you further.

It reminds me of The Fly. (Which, incidentally, is a prime source of Body Horror.)

I'm writing a fanfic about a team of OCs with a canon Sixth Ranger. Problem is, the canon character is a fan favorite, and I don't want him to steal the OCs' thunder.^note I can't simply remove/replace him, since there are plot-relevant and canonically sound reasons for it to be this character in particular. Any advice?

Does anyone have any advice as to how to portray a character having a crush subtly? I don't want to write someone with a crush and make it too blatant, extreme, and most likely cringe-worthy.

Well, remember that having a crush can very much be an awkward, painful experience for the character in question, and can be a cringe trigger for any audience member who's gone through that sort of experience regardless of how you write it. It can manifest in all sorts of ways. A character may lavish attention on the target of their interest or may actively avoid interaction with them; both are real behaviors, and they don't necessarily correlate to how naturally social the character is.

I suppose the question is: how much do you want to focus on the crush in your writing? It can be so significant that it cripples the character's ability to do anything, occupying every bit of their waking time; or it can be subtle and unobtrusive. It's your choice how to go about it.

An obsessive crush might involve any or all of the following:

• Following the target around constantly.
• Writing (and trashing) love letters over and over.
• Collecting (or even stealing) personal items.
• Acting with jealousy towards anyone else displaying them affection, or to whom they display affection.
• Neglecting personal responsibilities like eating, sleeping, bathing, doing chores, going to school/work, etc.
• Walking around in a daze.
• Actively hiding if the target is anywhere nearby.
• Tsundere behavior, like displaying dislike or scorn when the target is near.

More subtle crushes, obviously, have more subtle symptoms.

• A character can be completely functional but abruptly blush whenever the target is mentioned, or is nearby.
• They could stammer and lose composure when they need to interact.
• Conversely, they could give gifts to the target or offer to help them with mundane tasks.
• They could act chivalrously and lavish attention on the target.
• They could attempt to dissuade others who express affection or interest.

It's not a matter of absolutes, but of gradations.

edited 5th Jan '18 12:40:23 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

That actually helps me out a lot! Thank you!

I suppose "subtly" doesn't mean "passively". You could have the one with a crush hanging out with the subject of their affection, making an effort to meet them (in particular or alongside a group of friends/colleagues/acquaintances of either party), talk to them, etc. However, narration doesn't makes it obvious that the character has a crush, nor does the character exarcebate their behaviour in a way that makes it stand out from their usual interactions with other people.

Additionally, the narrative is subtle about it. For example, you could avoid having multiple chapters of the pair of characters together, and instead have them hang out with other friends individually. Not that having them constantly be together is a tell the characters are interested in each other necessarily; to me, it just seems like a natural assumption the reader would formulate, perhaps even unconsciously, especially if the characters are of opposite genders. "This is the main character, and that is the secondary character of opposite gender that shows up the most; they must end up together!"

Of course, I think most stories involving relationships between characters are often better if they, well, focus on the relationship between characters. Because it's easier, and actually comes from somewhere (even if unexpectedly; at reaching the ending of the novel: "oooh, so they've liked each other all along. This puts all of their past interactions in a new perspective.").

does anyone know a bit about polynesian cultures? i'm doing some research for my worldbuilding.

MIA

That's a really good point as well! Thank you!

If magical girls/boys were real, what impact would they have on society? I'm asking myself this question since I another setting where a event called the theorem lead to young children gaining magical powers and the ability to morph into an idealized versions of them selves. As a result, the idea of a magical girl becomes reality.

MIA

You might want to look into stories that focus on the effect of magic/superpowers suddenly appearing in the real world. The X-Men franchise does this; Cliff McNish's Doomspell Trilogy is a children's novel series in which overnight, all children across the world develop magic (book 2) and you see a variety of reactions from the frightened, uncomprehending parents to the children themselves, with numerous cases of Kids Are Cruel; in Jenny Nimmo's Children of the Red King books, magic has existed for centuries but hidden from the world and limited to specific families, one of which started an academy to control and manipulate endowed children; Strong Female Protagonist has government-sanctioned child soldiers in the USA, and a worldwide conspiracy in which those children with ''useful'' superpowers (the ability to cure all diseases or produce free energy) were murdered before they had a chance to change the world.

How many are affected? What are the limits of their abilities? Are they about punching people, or creating limitless wealth? Is their government at war, or facing threats of terrorism? What is the child-parent relationship in each culture? Who stands to benefit from a human weapon? Who will fear them?

edited 13th Jan '18 6:43:05 PM by LongLiveHumour

this takes place in modern day where it happened in the 1800s. though, theories suggest this happened before but we're less likely to be passed down.

MIA

Well, the question that was asked still pertains: what's the scope of these magic powers? Can they warp reality, nuke cities, and transmute matter, or are they more subtle, like influencing minds or performing tricks of telekinesis?

No matter what the society starts like or who has them, the introduction of magical powers will utterly transform the world. If these powers have a scientific basis, then expect Sufficiently Analyzed Magic; otherwise you throw science out the window. These magical children would be treated as gods, monsters or both. Enormous effort would go into detecting nascent power and then training, suppressing, or containing it.

Think about all the preteens you've ever met (or been). Would you trust them with magical powers? Hell, I can barely trust my son to get dressed in the morning without being yelled at multiple times. Stories of preteens saving the world are utter fantasy, designed to appeal to kid audiences.

edited 15th Jan '18 6:46:21 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

It won't work like that.

Even the most reckless/thoughtless children don't habitually jump in front of trains or bike into people. At least older children (those age brackets that don't habitually swallow everything in sight) and adolescents have enough judgment to eschew truly hazardous behaviours. So it's actually not likely that such superpowers will lead to widespread mayhem. (And realistically, natural selection will lead to the required maturity coinciding with the onset of the abilities in question).

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Recently I've discovered the Webcomic Sleepless Domain, which might interest you. I'm not even sure if the setting is in any way close to real world Earth, so I wouldn't call it "realistic" (but I don't think it's trying to be "realistic").

Going off what Fighteer said, not only I think science would develop around superpowered individuals, but government and private organizations would try to make use of them (hiring them, conscripting them, funding research, etc.). The specifics depend on when and where superpowers come up (have people with superpowers always been around, or is this a new development? What century is it? And so on) and the tone of the story.

So far there's 4 kinds of magical people in my setting: multiples, pluses, minuses, and divides

edited 19th Jan '18 8:24:45 PM by ewolf2015

MIA

Are there also rooters and squares? (I'm half-joking, half-being-serious.)

edited 23rd Jan '18 6:45:29 AM by WaterBlap

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

Be it as an element of an actual conlang or as improvised neologisms within the in-universe framework of an existing language (e.g. English), could there be merit in treating "neuter" and "androgynous" as separate grammatical genders? As I conceive of the two terms in my system, they're defined as follows:

• neuter: designates referents that are either truly sexless or whose grammatical gender is unimportant in the context of the sentence (i.e. truly "gender-neutral")
• androgynous:
  • In the singular, designates a referent that is known to qualify for both male and female simultaneously.
  • In the plural, designates a referent whose composition is known to comprise...
    • only individuals whose natural gender is androgynous (and thus would individually fall under the singular category above).
    • a mixture of masculine and feminine individuals.
    • a mixture of androgynous and either masculine or feminine individuals.
    • a mixture of androgynous, masculine and feminine individuals.

edited 23rd Jan '18 10:40:12 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

It's important to note that grammatical gender originates from before the current trend of labeling "gender" as having to do with personal identity. Some natural languages have three grammatical genders such as masculine, feminine, and neuter, but merely having grammatical gender doesn't necessarily mean something is associated with one sex or the other.

To take German for example, the word church is feminine, but it isn't necessarily associated with women, and shoe is masculine (die Kirche and der Schuh respectively). In some constructions, this is more obvious. The word "girl" translates to Maedchen, which is grammatically gender neuter due to the -chen suffix.

That said, some groups of nouns are associated with one grammatical gender more so than others (flowers tend to be feminine in German, for example).

Because of this, I don't think "androgynous" makes sense as a separate grammatical gender. Or at least the way you're asking about. A neuter gender or plural construction could possibly suffice. If you want a fourth grammatical gender, though, I would start with what sort of spelling (orthography) or endings (morphemes) would apply specifically to this fourth gender.

In English, we used to sort of have a system of grammatical gender for nouns, like things that cause change being masculine (e.g. weapons etc.) and things that cause or allow for life being feminine (e.g. the ocean etc.). Could an androgynous grammatical gender have a similar categorization?

edited 23rd Jan '18 12:14:25 PM by WaterBlap

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

Certainly, at least in the same way that it's equally valid in English to refer to a sailing ship by it (neuter) and she (feminine).

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

recently realized my pitches aren't all that enticing. even when i do things like a bug's life meets conan the barbarian, do people even care?

edited 24th Jan '18 2:23:55 PM by ewolf2015

MIA

Before you can make an enticing pitch, you yourself have to believe in the story you're telling.

Also, study loglines. That's how I got good at pitching a story in a short span of time.

Award-winning screenwriter. Directed some movies. Trying to earn a Creator page. I do feedback here.

Hmm, that doesn't seem like it is the same thing as what you were asking about. Nowadays, we might use the feminine in reference to a ship due to historical reasons (e.g. "That's what people have always called them") but we might use the neuter due to modern convention (e.g. "It doesn't have an actual gender and is not a person"). English doesn't use "it" as an androgynous gender pronoun. We either use the "general he" or the "singular they" when the gender is unknown or androgynous.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

More specifically, English doesn't assign arbitrary gender to nouns, and there are no gendered grammatical tenses or conjugations. This is one reason why it's so easy to invent pronouns to support whatever sociopolitical point one's trying to foist on one's readers.

It's also why you can't invent new grammatical genders for English, because it doesn't have any to begin with. You'd have to start with a language that does have them, like the romance languages, then figure out all the required conjugations, and assign the new gender to nouns, possibly at random? I don't know.

edited 31st Jan '18 12:31:08 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"