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
Though that sort of depends on if you think Joan was truly hearing from God... Or if she had schizophrenia.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall@Cutegirl920fire: Ahh, good to read, and fair enough! (Especially given that inclusion of Joan of Arc!) Carry on as you were, then! ^_^
My Games and Asset Packs
For the Jonguler-question.
They are basically bards singing their own songs, right?
then how about them starting the song off with a spell and then they keep fueling it with the music they can make with their instruments?
The song is optional and sometimes just for fun as motivation to keep them playing. But as long as the music keeps going, the spell will remain active.
Example: A witch may throw a fire-spell and it turns into a short-lived fireball.
A Jonguler will use the same spell and turn their instrument into a flamethrower depending on how long the song is.
And when they stop, so does the magic. Which has to happen eventually since even the best musician will go sore from playing for too long or too hard.
...
How does it sound?
Edited by Trainbarrel on Oct 31st 2023 at 7:03:07 PM
"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."Is that not a big part of the D&D "Bard" class?
Otherwise, you might look at the trope-page on Magic Music for inspirations as to what powers and abilities they might have, and examples of how others have approached the matter.
The main thing, I think, is just to keep their powers consistent and reasonable-seeming given their stated nature and the setting—as with any class.
(And, of course, if you intend this for gameplay, to make sure that their abilities are balanced. This is, however, less important for a non-interactive story, I daresay.)
What do you want to ask?
(If it helps, perhaps see the Wikipedia article that mentions them
.)
Could you elaborate on what they have happen there? I don't watch South Park these days.
My Games and Asset PacksLike, going back and forth between scenes written like "I read the book" to scenes written like "Bob read the book"? You generally don't, because I don't think that's very common. I can think of only one piece of writing that does that, and it's a crossover fanfic with POV characters from both parent works, one of which has a very distinct First-Person Smartass narration style. That fic didn't do anything special (you'll be able to see that within the first two chapters); it just treated the switch between first person scenes and third person scenes like any other POV switch that you'd find in a work written solely from third or first person.
As for jongleurs, those are basically traveling performers, or troupers. Performing troupes generally performed for the common folk, so one way to distinguish them from more conventional Magic Music could be to make jongleur magic "wilder" and less precise and academic, whatever that happens to mean in your setting. Maybe jongleur magic could be affected somewhat by location, mirroring how some performances might be beloved in some areas and disliked in others. Since jongleurs would encompass all kinds of performing arts, not just music, there could also be a "group magic" aspect, where spectating crowds, united in their focus and emotions directed at the performers, have a magic of their own. Bards are also inadvertent historiographers whose songs preserve and show culture in ways that stick around much longer than the other aspects of the cultures that made those songs (in real life, even), so their magic could serve as a key to ancient rituals or allow for seeing into the past or contacting one's ancestors.
(Disclaimer: I haven't watched the skit because I'm not into South Park; I just Googled it and got the gist of what the skit's talking about.)
I don't find simply having diverse characters to be pandering, either, but what I suspect the more reasonable folks have a problem with is when those characters are preachy, "not like other girls", give the impression of putting down whatever demographic(s) they consider to be the majority, lack flaws out of fear of claiming that everyone in [insert demographic] has that flaw, or otherwise use the character's diversity as a crutch for writing them as an actual interesting character. All of those are symptoms of bad writing that can ruin literally any character, no matter what race, gender, or orientation they are. Write complex people, not just demographics.
Edited by CrystalGlacia on Oct 31st 2023 at 2:17:55 PM
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."In Red Revenge, one of the side characters is a freiherr from somewhere in Saxony (perhaps near Leipzig), Michel Hertz.
I'm not sure if german nobility even had surnames (iirc surnames started coming intp being in Germany in the 1100s), but the family is briefadel ennobled in the 1400s, so perhaps that's possible?
Aside from the surname, what could the family's forefather have been ennobled for?
Edited by Nukeli on Oct 31st 2023 at 8:19:57 PM
~*bleh*~I'm writing a story set around the 50s/60s. Does anyone know of any resources that could help my dialogue feel authentic to the time period?
@ Sharktoast:
It may seem cliche, but reading books set around that time period might help or listening to radio shows/broadcasts. In my house we listen to a lot of radio shows from the 40s and 50s so I tell you from experience it gives a window into how people spoke and acted then, even if they are fictional stories.
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar WalllaceWould it make sense for someone to choose a horrible and painful death over the "mere" loss of a body part?
To explain: In one of my settings, one of the Big Bads is berating and punishing a group of her subordinates. At the end of each angry lecture, she takes a body part from the person she is angry with.
When she gets to a particular member of this unfortunate group, he begs her to reassign him to a new job instead of cutting off a limb or taking an eye.
The thing is that those who are given this mission rarely survive long and often die horrific deaths. Now, the plea doesn't work and she kills him for daring to "command her", but I wondered if the minion's request even made sense in first place.
Edited by Swordofknowledge on Nov 1st 2023 at 6:34:47 AM
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar Walllace
Sure. You can always hope to be able to cheat death as long as it is not immediate. The character can hope to be the first one to survive this kind of mission, while losing a member here and now seems far less avoidable.
Help with this guy's
◊ description?
I'm still bad at comprehending/explaining facesnote .
Edited by Nukeli on Nov 1st 2023 at 10:41:39 AM
~*bleh*~
Round face, a little slope on his nose, oval ears, beady eyesnote , thin eyebrows and a carefree smile.
Is this scene fatphobic?
In a story of mine, a young girl is getting bullied and confides to her mother about it. The mother, who happens to be plus-sized, is of course upset that her daughter is getting bullied but she's confused on why she's getting bullied since she's not chubby (which she says out loud when the daughter is out of ear shot).
The mother has been bullied over her weight in her childhood, so she's quite insecure about said weight and her past gets gradually revealed over the course of the story (which is told in an In Medias Res sort of manner).
However, as a skinny person, I'm concerned that the scene might come off as fatphobic, so I'm asking just in case.
Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Nov 1st 2023 at 7:55:33 AM
CG for short
Nah, it doesn't.
The reason for it is because not all people have the same standards for everything, including what bullying is, and the mother clearly only have her own to go with which can't be applied to her daughter's case here.
Also, people are not perfect in any way, especially not in a story. The mother saying that is proof of that.
It's just one character's opinion, not the author's. Characters are allowed to have their own opinions in a story.
Edited by Trainbarrel on Nov 1st 2023 at 5:05:36 PM
"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."
x3
Also what's considered "fat" (or "little fat" vs. "very fat") in the west has changed significantly in a short time (the margin of "thin"/"acceptable" getting smaller and smaller).
~*bleh*~Would the following situation be "disrespectful" to this character?
The closest thing my vampires vs werewolves story has to a Big Good is the leader of the pack that occupies the town my main character lives in. Throughout Part 1 of the story, he does his best to navigate a horrible situation and provide his guidance to the people under his protection, humans and werewolves alike. Unfortunately, he is killed at the end of the story and his role ends there.
Much later (in-story years) when the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits heroes are fighting the final villain, one of the things they have to deal with is an endless horde of ghosts/zombies of dead characters that are generated as a defense against them, like white blood cells.
The Big Good I mentioned above appears in this manner, as a hollow-eyed, mindless shell of his former self made just to fight the heroes. This thing almost kills the main character's father (his own childhood friend) before he is absolutely crushed by the main character's mother's powers.
So not only did this character die, but he was "resurrected" as a mindless attack drone that almost murdered his childhood friend and was then effortlessly defeated. Considering how he was in his "prime", I wondered if that would leave a bad taste in most reader's mouths, especially due to how good of a person this guy was, and how well he treated the villain who is responsible for his "coming back to life".
Edited by Swordofknowledge on Nov 2nd 2023 at 9:30:05 AM
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar Walllace
Really?
Ain't that one just a "shadow puppet" made by the villain's hand into the man's likeness and with nothing of the actual man inside of the shape?
Is it really disrespectful to the original if the similar shadow is based solely on the bias of a man who probably knew nothing about him to begin with?
"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."
@ Trainbarrel:
Kind of. It's definitely nothing like the original living version of the man in question, but it's ambiguous as to just how much of the person is inside of these things, since at some points they do show some degree of sentience (an example being most of them using attacks/fighting style unique to them, and one of them going out of her way to target a character who got too close to the villain's weak point).
But otherwise, yes. They're just "white blood cells" performing a function rather than characters in their own right. Certainly not the people they once were.
I guess it was more the idea that I thought readers would be horrified to see him in that state (even if it isn't exactly "him") along with the fact that the villain who brought him out in this manner was very much a nephew figure to him throughout his life. That just makes it all the more...I don't even know.
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar WalllaceOkay. I have for the first chapter, a flash forward that dipps into flashbacks (with one featuring entirely different characters from those in the "present" pov). I want to hask how do scene transitions (in prose) to the flashbacks without telling the reader that they are flashbacks?
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Nov 2nd 2023 at 8:19:12 AM
Mm. "Villain resurrects dead good guy figure and makes them fight the other good guys" is hardly a new concept. You underestimate your readers, I think.
So, let's hang an anchor from the sun... also my Tumblr

BTW, the character in question is a Historical Domain Character who indeed suffered from mental health issues and became devoutly religious in the last few years of their life historically, so I'm just being historically accurate there.
There are other devout characters in the setting that don't have mental troubles (such as Joan of Arc), although they're far and between.
Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Oct 30th 2023 at 11:15:56 AM
CG for short