Hello, fellow writers! Got any question that you can't find answer from Google or Wikipedia, but you don't think it needs a separate thread for? You came to the right place!
Don't be shy, and just ask away. The nice folks here, writers and non-writers, experts and non-experts, will do their best to help you.
The folder below contains links for special interest threads, mostly at OTC, but also from Yack Fest and Troper Coven.
- Aircrafts and Aviation
- Computer
- Economics
- General Religion, Mythology, and Theology
- General Science Thread
- Chemistry
- Earth Science, including Meteorology
- Medicine
- Physics
- Space - Just don't talk about space warfare over there; use Sci-fi Warfare thread below instead.
- Chemistry
- History
- Martial arts
- Military
- Police and Law Enforcements
- Politics - The opening post of the linked thread includes links to political threads on specific countries as well.
- Philosophy
- Psychology
- Sci-fi Warfare
Also take a look at Useful Notes on various topics. They can be pretty useful.
Now, bring on the questions, baby!
edited 11th Apr '18 6:31:51 PM by dRoy
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
A Gamma Moth
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
maybe the snake-like being could get ink injected underneath the scales to form a picture, like a Pearler bead style tattoo. But it might come off eventually if this being sheds their scales.
Whoever else is changing the diapers. 
Seriously, though, I just misread your post. Thought that as an author you want the baby's hermaphroditism concealed from everyone.
Spiral out, keep going.
it's a living
Maybe make the impermanence of the tattoos into a character/cultural trait? Sort of like henna.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
So... My setup (one or both parents is a practicing pediatrician in good legal standing) is plausible for keeping the child's unusual nature a secret?
My Dangan Ronpa oc has a fatal neurological degenerative condition and used her nanomachines to do what the affected parts of her brain could no longer do. She was also afraid of becoming a burden to her adoptive parents, something that does happen to terminal patients in real life and she does have other issues regarding feeling like a burden to people. I'm afraid this carries unfortunate implications? Does it?
Well, this is my first time down on the Writer's Block forum. I had a question that hopefully someone can help me with, I might be too tired and distracted to find the answer.
Does anyone know the "proper" way for dialogue attribution for online/digital conversations? Google-fu is just turning up basic attribution topics like "use 'said'" and "don't abuse adverbs".
Say my dialogue is an online chat or a text message, something like this:
Rotpar: These are words.
Randomtroper: Lair! These are words!
Do I just plug that directly into the prose? Should the user names be bolded or italized? A smaller font? Because I frequently see signs or other displayed messages in a smaller font but that might be the publisher's doing and not the writer's.
Is there a standard format for this in the first place?
Ahr river
There are standard formats but there is always variability. There is no 100% perfect strategy, just many strategies that contradict and approximate success.
I overuse said in my book. Some of my friends hate it, but I also very rarely get insults for my oversaidism.
Others have a more scriptlike function in their stories, and they don't get criticism either.
For text speak, most transcribe it directly like you just did unless there's another focus going on.
Read my stories!
MIA
is it okay to call a male black magic user a witch?
MIA
A witch can just be a practitioner of witchcraft, however that may be defined in your setting- if you don't treat it as a female-exclusive term in your story, people won't think of it that way. In the Dragaera series, witchcraft is the predominant form of magic practiced by humans, and the term 'witch' is used for witchcraft practitioners of all sexes.
edited 9th Feb '18 5:14:44 PM by CrystalGlacia
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."
Even from a historical perspective, at least one of the witches accused during the Salem Witch Trials was a man.
"Can't make an omelette without breaking some children." -Bur
Queen of Neith
Sorry to interrupt, but what toys, animated series, video games and superhero would be interest to a 11 year old boy.
Explanation: Warren, an 11 year old boy who was transmutated into a Bald Eagle Theriomorph repatedly states to Meredith, a Cougar Theriomorph about wanting to be a hero "like all the others."
This is important because I want to show that Warren is a young boy who over the course of his Protagonist Journey to Villain starts out as a idealistic and noble kid hero into a horrifying Social Darwinist who believes that humanity is inferior and he is the Scourge Of God, an instrument of divine retribution.
In other words, turning Ben 10 into Apocalypse (X-Men)
Up in Useful Notes/Paraguay
Depends on when this takes place. If it's set in the present, have him be into things like Marvel and DC comics, Minecraft, Pokemon, Adventure Time, Star Wars, and Harry Potter.
Nobody living on the edge of Nowhere
Ignore. Edited.
edited 25th Feb '18 6:30:17 AM by DeadPeaks
I'm currently putting together a free PDF e-book of one of my short-stories, and I find myself uncertain on a point of formatting: It was originally formatted according to one or another manuscript format (I think), in which italicised words were also underlined. Should I retain that for the e-book, or remove the underlining? (I'm guessing the latter, but I'm not sure...)
(The story in question is one that I wrote for a TV Tropes writing contest that happened a few years ago, by the way.)
My Games & Writing
I doubt it matters; consistency in the formatting is more important. If it were me, though, I'd remove the underlining. When I'm reading a book (or e-book), something being underlined looks a bit strange.
Fair enough—that makes sense in both points. Thank you! ^_^
My Games & Writing
Any jobs that require a lot of moving around the country?
Moving places of residence, or just physical location? How often is frequent? Long-haul trucking or railroading, driving a tour bus, flight stewarding, crewing long-distance ships, and remote sales are what come to mind first for just having to physically move a person around a lot.
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."
Moving places of residence, shortish term (around two in two years idk)
Ahr river
Military is the common one used in media.
Read my stories!
What are some long-term consequences of receiving a concussion? How might these symptoms affect narration if the character who received said concussion is the main POV?
"Can't make an omelette without breaking some children." -Bur
Do inmates on death row ever have cellmates, or is it always solitary confinement?
"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."
Question for any Russian-speakers:
My Soviet Union has developed a policy called vyrashchivaniye ("cultivation" if I can trust Google Translate) for hiring talent from Soviet-allied countries. I'm trying to create a term for the hired workers, but I'm not sure where to chop it properly to add the -nik suffix. Does "vyrashchinik" work?
(You may freely mock me for trying to create an idiom in a language I don't even speak, if you like. 
)
edited 7th Mar '18 1:52:36 PM by Ramidel
Uh huh. Выращивание sounds kiinda awkward in itself
Vozdelyvaniye (возделывание) is a bit more catchy option, and can be easily used to create the name of Vozdelnik (воздельник)
edited 7th Mar '18 7:38:42 PM by Adannor
