Random Questions Thread

I need constructive feedback from the troper community regarding a hypothetical system for classifying beings — living or not — by how humanoid their physical appearance is, with the system intended to be designed so that it can be applicable to any setting or genre (or as close to that as possible), and I think it merits its own thread for that. Where would be the best place to put it: Writers' Block, or World-Building?

edited 31st Mar '17 1:12:48 PM by MarqFJA

Just wondering, I have a question for my fantasy story ''The Gods Can Bleed".

Is "devil whore" a good Fantastic Slur for a succubus?

Its kind of a job description and runs the chances of being met with just "Yeah, so?" or even pride in job well done.

Thus question of mine may or may not come up when I write my story, regardless if it's fanfic or original stuff.

But I reviewed sanctions applied to countries like Iran and Sudan and I need to double check if these countries are not allowed to sell offensive weapons to other countries?

I guess it wouldn't be out of place in either, seeing as it doesn't pertain to a specific world that's being built, and also isn't exclusively about writing unattached to a specific setting.

I second the notion that the succubus in question might not be all that offended.

Then again, that would depend on how the species views itself. What if they're like Geishas/High Class Callgirls, and being called a whore in any capacity would greatly downplay the quality of their services? Also, often a slur gains its negative power through who says it and how he says it, so pretty much anything can be a viable slurr if you put enough feeling into it (just think about the confidence with which children shout silly names, fully intending to rile each other up).

edited 2nd Apr '17 7:06:29 PM by ilili

I see. I will work on the OP for the thread tomorrow, since it's so late and I want to be wide awake when I do this.

BTW, you're missing a "carrot" in both of your post's halves, unless you're operating on the understandable assumption that 1 "carrot" means "look 2 posts above this one" rather than "look 1 post above this one".

You mean 'caret'. A caret is a punctuation mark that looks like a small inverted v, a carrot is a root vegetable. Yeah, everyone loves homophones...

Anyone know any sources on portraying a different decade accurately? Looking for 50s-70s.

Well, maybe not the decade itself, but the people existing in it.

there's books on that i guess, i honestly don't know.

but i have a question myself, one of my characters was adopted by a goddess in the guise of a raven with a white patch on her chest. the thing is, of all people, it's the morrigan who adopts him.

the thing is, would god actually adopt a human child under their wing?

1. if you don't know, then don't reply with an answer. :/

2. This is a fictional story with a fictional premise, we can't judge if it would happen or not because there is no point of reality to use as a reference. It would happen if that's your premise. If you mean if it's mythologically appropriate, then you will want to look into gaelic mythology.

edited 3rd Apr '17 11:40:51 AM by MrAHR

I don't know of any resources specifically designed for that, but as a supplement, you could try reading/watching fictional works produced during that time, particularly the ones that are supposed to be set at the time they were made. While obviously it's not a perfect resource (I mean, if we got our definitions of reality from Hollywood, we'd be in trouble), it could give you some insight into things like ideals and such (for example, if most romantic movies of the time show a particular relationship dynamic as good or desirable, it's reasonable to assume that it was fairly normal at the time). Also, pop-cultural references.

One thing I've heard of artists doing is looking through old mail-order catalogues to see what sort of things people were buying. Especially in the clothing department, it can also give you a better idea of what people were actually wearing, instead of what high-fashion suggested they *should* wear.

Hope that helps at least a little bit.

edited 3rd Apr '17 12:42:54 PM by Ashfire

I half-agree, half-disagree with . You should look (not sure why this is spoilered but I'll keep with it) into the Morrigan and see if the personality matches with what you want. Note that if you get it wrong, you've probably fallen into Sadly Mythtaken, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. That said, deities don't typically just do random stuff for random reasons, and in some mythologies (I think including Celtic mythology), deities act as human as the rest of us, so to answer the question of "would a God adopt a human child under their wing," I'd say "probably... depends."

Ashfire: those are good ideas! thanks!

well, although i only looked references, i never had seen of story on her attitudes on children. so it might fall into it. but, the morrigan, was know for life just as she was known for death and war. so, in some ways, it might not be weird i guess.

Perhaps she wants someone to cause bloodbaths for her?

see the problem is, morrin, unlike his mother, wants nothing to do with with violence (although he's a technical pacifist). he wants to see more of the world rather then experiencing the constant conflicts within it. sadly, due to his morality, he doesn't know that having ravens burst out of a man is a right way to react to someone bumping into you.

edited 3rd Apr '17 2:09:05 PM by ewolf2015

Character motivation is really not a random question doohickey unless you want some cut and dry answers. You might want to go to a different thread or make your own.

Mr AHR might be right here.

If Morrin makes ravens burst out of people that merely bump into him it sounds like he'd be causing enough of a bloodbath already. Perhaps just like good ol' Morrigan planned.

Sometimes I think of a really great/funny line and feel really proud of myself, but then realize that it kind of makes the rest of my writing seem comparatively lackluster. Other times, I think of a great/funny line to put in a later part of my story and find myself "rushing" to get to that part faster, producing subpart writing in the process. Does anybody else have this problem? If so, what do you do about it?

I remind myself that this is only the first/second draft and editing will fix it.

That doesn't help. I have real trouble with the idea of first drafts. If something sucks, it really bugs me. I mean it really bugs me. If I think I can do better, I can't leave anything alone until it is better.

Then what exactly is stopping you from making it better right then and there?

Your writing will have highs and lows, don't worry too much about that. Also, if you want to write down a line, just write down the line. You can fill in the blanks later.

It's not so much that there's something stopping me. In fact, that's kind of the problem. Making everything as good as it possibly can be, to the point that sometimes I wonder if I'm shooting for some unattainable platonic ideal, becomes an obsession. Which makes the act of writing less fun. I think it's an offshoot of my OCD. Either way, I hate it.

When I write my first drafts, they also need to be more or less perfect to my eye. Because the only way I can satisfactorily build up things like mood, symbolism, and other subtext is to write it in the same order it's going to be read, I also never skip past the problem spot and keep going, or start writing the next chapter or anything like that. It might seem like I'm shooting myself in the foot by repeatedly spending multiple days or even weeks on a single descriptor, but the last time I waited almost two weeks for a description to come to me, the line I came up with brought out a particular mood that now shadows this entire character, who serves important roles in other stories. How can I be sure that would have come to me later?

Although one thing that's kind of helped, in a kind of weird way, is knowing that when I show it to a beta reader, they're going to notice all kinds of flaws and other crap that I had no idea was even there. After my first few rounds of critique, that helped shift my mindset from 'it has to be PERFECT' to 'it has to satisfy me'. I trust my gut more, I get a bit less bent-out-of-shape about potentially making mistakes, and I don't aim for perfection anymore. Of course, just plain writing a lot also helps you get a bit more comfortable with what's coming onto the page.

edited 4th Apr '17 1:06:17 PM by CrystalGlacia

Definitely seconding what Crystal Glacia said.

Guys, you REALLY shouldn't worry so much about getting a draft perfect or you're going to get bogged down in tiny little edits every three pages. I totally get why you're bothered about things not being "good" enough: Now that I'm hauling ass on finishing Takotsubo's first draft, I have to limit myself to five or ten minutes of editing previous bits because I've slept on it for a couple of days and the stuff I thought was okay now sounds weird/stupid/inadequate.

Sometimes I spend the "ten-minute editing" time just tweaking A SINGLE SENTENCE, but then I remind myself to start on the NEXT part of the script. Hell, I'm even bothered that I'm fifty pages in, but only a third of the way finished instead of halfway like I intended. But it's not like I'm going to send the script to a director who will never, ever make any changes at all—this is a new play, and once it goes into production and everyone's mulled it over for a week, I WILL HEAR OTHER PEOPLE'S INPUT AND I WILL START EDITING IT.

The script that everyone reads for the first time is not going to be published: The script that's produced one or two months later AS A FULL SHOW, in front of an audience, is what's going to be sold for other productions. Even then, new shows have one or two weeks of "previews" where the AUDIENCE gets to send input on what worked and what didn't before the script is officially "set in stone."

Same with writing novels.

I will send my novel draft to a publisher, but the best part is that they won't care about whether this one sentence on Page 17 doesn't sound perfect. They'll care if the story as a whole works, and THEN they'll send an editor in to start telling me a) what I got wrong, and b) how to fix it.

Writing is this constant process of editing, and what you see in the best-sellers list is NOT EVEN CLOSE to what the authors must have sent in as the first draft.

edited 4th Apr '17 1:59:58 PM by Sharysa