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
thanks for the insight. And no she is not given much into about the world (gotta get the exposition in somehow) but she gets it from a literal Exposition Fairy.
I do have a flaw for said fairy in that she herself knows less about the setting than she thinks (or about her own fortes) leading to the potential for misunderstandings later down the road (and a realization that she isn't as knowledgeable as she was led to believe and a desire to learn to correct that)
For further context the character I ask about is specifically a dungeon and adventurer both, meaning she isn't quite as sessile than traditional Genii Locorum (nation sized or bigger ones aside).
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Nov 13th 2023 at 1:23:12 AM
How should memory loss from a head trauma come back? Is forgetting everything for a while plausible? How long should it last?
Well this is actually a Transformers fic, but i have also written a human-realistic coma due to lack of canon on how their brains work.
Edited by Nukeli on Nov 13th 2023 at 12:08:29 PM
~*bleh*~
I'd explain it as a result of data rot. Or Electromagnetic shenanigans
To reiterate. I'm asking about flaws for a character that is...
- A Dungeon
- that has an avatar that can move outside her actual body
- that goes around adventuring with others
- and has the mind and heart of a teenage girl.
- Among her friends is an Exposition Fairy that thinks she knows a lot about certain topics than she really has.
What flaws could be extrapolated from that?
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Nov 13th 2023 at 2:15:02 AM
Actual personality?
I was having the amnesia be caused by blunt force trauma.
And i meant how (and how soon) should i write the character's memory coming back? How would that propably work for a human being, for reference?
This is a very Amnesia-like horror story written in second person. I was thinking of actually attempting to reach 50,000 words as a nanowrimonote .
Edited by Nukeli on Nov 13th 2023 at 12:31:35 PM
~*bleh*~
...generic Nice Girl with a playful snarky side?
(sighs) this is what I get for starting prep work too late and focusing on the plot.
as for the amnesia question, I'd still say EM shenanigans would be suitable here. Like old school computers can be effed up by magnets in general and Transformers started in the 80s so its possible Cybertronian software operates similarity.
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Nov 13th 2023 at 3:40:28 AM
Oh, in that case, that could take the form of messed up images being solely repaired, though given the context that does seem like something that would be hard to pull off in prose format.
Perhaps a vision quest though the same scene that starts out distorted but returns to a more normal state with each iteration as more of their memories return?
@Morning — Perhaps you can do what I do and just toss this character into the world. I often find that character flaws just sort of manifest as I write.
Otherwise, you should really start from the basics. What is this character's role? What do they want? What's stopping them? What will they do to achieve it? What wouldn't they do? You can develop a character's personality a bit easier if you understand their job in the story and how they'll react in certain scenarios.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallI think I have a flaw (not the only one) in mind, and its the oddly-specific "shyness when not around close people (or in the heat of battle)." Now I want to ask for advice to address it.
Rather I'm looking for something a motherly figure would say to get someone out of their shell.
@Warjay
The former is easy enough, she is the protagonist and Audience Surrogate. The other questions...are something I haven't quite hashed out yet. The closest for now would be a sense of familiarity and belonging to the strange new world she has wound up in?
FWIW a later chapter will have a spinach-filled event (I think I mentioned it before, its being a pied piper adaptation that led to several children being bound to her thanks to an antagonist's schemes). I also have a later storyline in mind where people from the future are trying to destroy ehr out of thinking she would become the tyrant that turned the planet into a mass of grey goo.
So I guess that should narrow it down to something that results from the former and could lead into the latter. A fear of losing control?
The problem is I'm not sure if that cuts it since the former event hasn't been written yet (merely plotted) and I'm not sure if a flaw has to be introduced early to help make the character, well more rounded. If people' s first impression of her is that she's too perfect, I fear people would drop the book before getting to the point where flaw starts.
(granted there is an Ensemble Cast here, but of that, only 4 characters were introduced from the start)
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Nov 13th 2023 at 6:37:22 AM
Dear tropers,
I am writing an episode for a web cartoon I am creating. In said episode, I heavily reference the Ghost Train fire (Google it).
I want to ensure I am portraying this event as sensitively as possible.
In addition, I want to make sure this episode is appropriate for tweens/teens, and get markers on pacing, etc.
https://smallpdf.com/file#s=adbdbf09-9bc3-44a6-8116-6f7d0123e980
@ queenieAG:
While I cannot exactly answer some aspects of your question (pacing, suitability for tweens) I can say that when describing a historical disaster, I think sensitivity isn't too big of an issue. There are concrete facts of the tragedy that happened, and as long as you are displaying them accurately as they occur and not making light of them, I don't see an issue. In fact, I'd say trying to "water them down" would be more offensive to the event.
Even then, there are countless jokes, comedic portrayals and other humorous renditions of awful historical events, so I don't think sensitivity is all it's cracked up to be.
Of course, that is an entirely separate conversation than if you are trying to ensure it is appropriate for kids; in that case, I can understand wanting to cut down on the truly awful parts of it.
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar WalllaceDoes it count as consent if the person begrudgingly gives it if they don't think they have any other choice?
So, this is a story set shortly after World War I. The MC, an upper-classed woman, gets forcibly married to a man of the same class by her father. At some point, she has to bear a son for him, which she's aware of but dreads since she's a closeted lesbian and her husband is quite an asshole. One night, her husband asks if they could try conceiving a child now and the MC says yes, although very begrudgingly. She knew that refusing and fighting back wouldn't end well for her, so the best option in her mind would be to accept it and try to endure it.
Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Nov 14th 2023 at 6:58:32 AM
CG for shortSeconding what Trainbarrel said. Technically it is consent, but it is only done because the other options are worse than what is right in front of her. I believe there are always choices, but if you are pressured into making one of them, then the validity of that choice is very much suspect.
EDIT: I actually didn't see that last part of your question.
Very much yes. There is no real consent and thus there cannot be a mutually...enjoyable encounter, so to speak. It was done under both social and physical duress.
Edited by Swordofknowledge on Nov 14th 2023 at 10:34:51 AM
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar Walllace
How about this?
When it dissolves, it might feel like a plug in the head has been pulled and switches gears back to where they were before the amnesia happened.
In one instant, they regain all of their memories at once with the context intact but loses all the memories they gained during the amnesia instead as an equal exchange.
Like flicking a light-switch on and off in the room.
Nothing else.
They just start over from where their brain took off and might be a bit surprised that a set amount of time have passed since then, but they probably can cope with the reality just fine.
Edited by Trainbarrel on Nov 14th 2023 at 5:17:35 PM
"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."Does it fit for the final location two of my main characters meet is the place where they had their first date?
After my main-character-turned-villain is defeated, he and one of the other protagonists (his vampire ex-girlfriend) have a long (as in years long) conversation about why he went on his apocalyptic rampage, and what he intends to do in the aftermath.
Due to the nature of where they are, he can change it into anything that he desires, so he takes them to a number of different places as they have their long meeting. However, the final form the place takes is the small restaurant where they had their first date, back when he was an Ordinary High-School Student who stumbled into the supernatural by mistake, and she was a vampire on a mission in his town. He even changes their clothes and appearances to match that night back when things were simpler.
Is that a fitting setting for their last time really speaking in person? Or is that a little too sappy/on-the-nose for the gravity of the situation?
Edited by Swordofknowledge on Nov 14th 2023 at 11:54:18 AM
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar Walllace
It fits the "First encounter/last encounter" balance.
One thing though. What if the location is there and the same but their current selves are at a different table while their old selves according to his memory, are at the table they had back then and these two can look at the scene instead of each other while they're having this last conversation. Looking back on what was as a way to not look directly at each other out of discomfort until the very end, where the young couple leaves and she does look at him, seeing the husk of a wreck he currently is in the present.
And the moment he does, the restaurant is just a ruin, to match how messed up they have become in the present.
"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."
@ Trainbarrel:
Thanks. It's intended to fulfill that purpose, as well as illustrate a kind of "what could have been" had they just gone their separate ways, and how they (and the world) would have been better off for it.
I do like the idea of them seeing their younger, healthier selves through his power and watching them just walk away from each other (instead of doing what they did in reality) and then the jarring shock of seeing her and him both ragged and in their true poor condition.
The only thing I may keep is the restaurant being intact and cheerfully bright and untouched. It would add a contrast to the severity of what is happening at the moment...although I may add a quick view of the place absolutely destroyed (him momentarily reflecting the true condition of the place in the real world after the apocalypse before he replaces it with his memory version).
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar WalllaceSo what does Eyes Always Shut (or squinting in general) mean in the context of martial artists? I'm considering using it as a sign of cockiness and want to know if it is the opposite of the trad usage.
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Nov 14th 2023 at 9:58:55 AM
Question about police handcuffs: If someone (think a 12-13 year old kid) tried to use them to zip-line down a winch line, how long would it take until they or the wire break? Within a few seconds or half a minute.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

@MorningStar1337:
I wouldn't say that those flaws necessarily follow from the description given, but if they're what you have in mind for the character, then I'll add that they aren't contradicted by it, either!
Otherwise... I mean, I don't think that there are any flaws that necessarily follow from the situation that you describe. There are some that are likely—teenagers are more likely to be headstrong than people of other ages—but nothing that is necessarily so, I feel.
Hmm... Actually, one comes to mind: is she given much information about the world into which she has been "born"? If not, then she might be very uninformed about the peoples, cultures, politics, etc. of the setting, which may cause problems. (And which may be advantageous in some ways, too.)
[edit]
Since this is a page-topper, let me note that Nukeli asked some questions in response to MorningStar1337's post just before mine, at the end of the previous page.
Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Nov 13th 2023 at 10:40:46 PM
My Games and Asset Packs