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llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnsfkye | gnokdo5 | 1,613,584,999 | 1,613,505,182 | 1 | 0 | Yes. | Absolutely not. In fact, a lot of writers do this. Just don’t be too attached to your plans, because writing tends to take a life of its own. | 1 | 79,817 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnokdo5 | go8dk62 | 1,613,505,182 | 1,613,920,655 | 0 | 1 | Absolutely not. In fact, a lot of writers do this. Just don’t be too attached to your plans, because writing tends to take a life of its own. | I think it’s a good thing to an extent because yes, you can use the new plot points to foreshadow and help direct what happens now so that when you get to the later stuff the reader goes “oooo!”. However, I do also agree that there’s a lot of things down this wormhole that can ultimately become distractions as a writer. I write out plot points on sticky notes so I can move them around. I would say if you have a brilliant idea come around, write it on a sticky note and tuck it away. You can see it whenever you need the reminder it will happen but you can also move it around to where it needs to be later, without hindering what you’re doing now. Likely you won’t end up with too many sticky notes before you finish the first book but you won’t lose any plot ideas either. Good luck! | 0 | 415,473 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnpc48y | gnp4r16 | 1,613,517,827 | 1,613,514,265 | 1 | 0 | Nah, thats good. It adds depth and prevents you from compremising the story. You’ll prevent bad writing from occuring. The worst writers wrote for the money of it, they never plan past the first book, and plan to end every series at the first book. Only to expand and the fans greive on the expansions. The best writers plan and dive into their stories. Each series is anticipated because its a live world. Since its alive in your head. | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | 1 | 3,562 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnp4r16 | gnpfmdx | 1,613,514,265 | 1,613,519,574 | 0 | 1 | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | If the first book doesn't do so hot, you can move onto the next portion of the series - trying again and again. Best part is if you get a hit, then the rest become valuable because they're more lore and story in the world your hit is set in - making a back catalogue for readers to get. Just make them semi standalone, with enough references that make your reader go, "Who is this guy/gal? He/she gets a *something something* in the sequel/prequel? Now I gotta get that shit." Boom you have a series empire. | 0 | 5,309 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnp4r16 | gnpi5u5 | 1,613,514,265 | 1,613,520,863 | 0 | 1 | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | Nothing inherently wrong with planning future things but keep in mind it could be a giant waste of time and it also might just be you procrastinating. | 0 | 6,598 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnpmxf0 | gnp4r16 | 1,613,523,319 | 1,613,514,265 | 1 | 0 | It's better too write things down now when you have the ideas. I've lost many a good idea but thinking I'd remember them. And planning is always good. | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | 1 | 9,054 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnpph3o | gnp4r16 | 1,613,524,635 | 1,613,514,265 | 1 | 0 | i don’t see it as a bad thing. personally, it motivates me to finish the current story i’m working on! | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | 1 | 10,370 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnp4r16 | gnpqfge | 1,613,514,265 | 1,613,525,130 | 0 | 1 | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | i suggest planning the first book then having vague plans for the rest of the series. i feel like i overplanned my series. there's always going to be stuff you can't predict like certain things working better or worse. it can also be good to leave yourself open to finish the series at any time, or extend it longer if it's still working. one thing i do think is good though is at least knowing the sort of ending you're building toward. but that is also the thign where the specifics will change the most over the course of fully creating the story. | 0 | 10,865 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnpsilp | gnp4r16 | 1,613,526,212 | 1,613,514,265 | 1 | 0 | My two cents? I set out to write a 5 book series. Took months to create an outline and some interesting characters. A few weeks into writing the first book, I realized it could all be said in a single novel. It’s been said before but... Just Write! | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | 1 | 11,947 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnq5b36 | gnp4r16 | 1,613,532,986 | 1,613,514,265 | 1 | 0 | Not a book series but look at Attack on Titan. Hajime Isayama definitely spent at least a few years planning the entire story. There's no problem with planning a whole series but you need to be able to connect everything effectively. If you can create a great outline of a story, and are able to connect those events well, you get a great story. | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | 1 | 18,721 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnp4r16 | gnqdv7r | 1,613,514,265 | 1,613,537,819 | 0 | 1 | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | A plan is never bad, but never fully stick to the plan. Remember, battles only go as planned until first contact. | 0 | 23,554 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnp4r16 | gnqr8hh | 1,613,514,265 | 1,613,546,797 | 0 | 1 | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | I planned to write my story in one book so I wouldn't end up with a trilogy, but then I realised that because of its lenght I had to split it in three. I still think of it as one very interconnected narrative, so I plan a lot of set-ups and payoffs and forshadowing throughout the books, and sometimes I work on the structure of book 2 and 3, but I give myself a time limit if in that moment I was supposed to be working on the revision for book 1. | 0 | 32,532 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnp4r16 | gnr4sc7 | 1,613,514,265 | 1,613,559,723 | 0 | 1 | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | It's good if you have a plan with you and if it's not affecting your current work, go for it. Also, try connecting what you working on today with what you are planning for future. If it's connecting and the results are what you were looking for, then go for it! Else, you need to give a thought again. Also, the future plans shouldn't have an impact on what you writing today because people will only look forward to the coming series if they will find the present one worth it. Think wisely and if it's hard to manage , forget the future planning and focus on the present writing. | 0 | 45,458 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnram4m | gnp4r16 | 1,613,564,801 | 1,613,514,265 | 1 | 0 | Yes, because of a few things. One thing is creatively. A lot of times I see writers feel they have to put boring set up or can’t put that cool thing in the novel because it happens in book three. This will basically make your books lesser. As an addendum to that, if you’ve never written a novel before, or you’ve only written a few, you don’t generally have any idea how much detail is going to be in a book so your plan for future books might be off the mark. The other reason is business related. You might not be able to publish the first book of a series, and so all the time you’ve spent on future books has now been wasted. I always say that focusing on one book, making that book the best it can be, making sure it’s full of exciting and fun things, is better for you to focus on. For both reasons. | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | 1 | 50,536 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnp4r16 | gnrhbu0 | 1,613,514,265 | 1,613,569,305 | 0 | 1 | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | I think it's a good idea. Planning ahead can help you know what to include (or not) in the first book. Of course, 20,000 word outlines are probably too much—at least they would be for me. But some idea of where you're going is helpful. | 0 | 55,040 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnp4r16 | gnrn7es | 1,613,514,265 | 1,613,572,569 | 0 | 1 | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | I only want to add on to whats written here by saying that I think Easter eggs and hidden plotlines are the butter on my crossaint, so if mapping out the series helps you do that, I would say go for it! But, you know, unexpected things happen so don't cling to The Plan if something turns out Naturally Different. | 0 | 58,304 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gns5524 | gnp4r16 | 1,613,580,727 | 1,613,514,265 | 1 | 0 | tl;dr- **Planning is good, but focusing on the future and excessively hyping yourself for what comes next may be bad and lead to disappointment. However, every writer is different and has different approaches, so do as you will.** I had a similar mindset when writing my own short series (I'm currently writing the third and last book). Though it's very good to plan ahead as you should definitely know what comes next and not ad-lib things (though that's not to say good things can't come out of it), try not to get swept up in building up things for the next book or future events. I feel because of my excitement and hype for writing that second book in my own series, the quality seemed drastically lower than what I expected; I'm currently revising it because of this. However, focusing on one book at a time can lead to some really great things and in-depth development. In this third book I'm writing, I feel that I've been able to write better and more sincerely than my last two projects. Though I attribute this to the improvement of my writing abilities over time, I feel like a big factor of it is not having to foreshadow anything or prepare for what's next. All I have to do is focus on what I'm currently doing. | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | 1 | 66,462 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnp4r16 | gnsfkye | 1,613,514,265 | 1,613,584,999 | 0 | 1 | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | Yes. | 0 | 70,734 | 1,000 | ||
llbxgj | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it bad for me to plan a whole series before even finishing the first book? Hi all, so I’m writing a book that is the first in a fantasy series with many themes. However I haven’t even finished the first book in this series and have started planning the next few books in the series. I’ve done this so I can build up these themes in the first book and foreshadow these events, however I fear that I’ll get too excited and want to just move on to these books immediately. However my question is if planning these new books ahead of the first book is a bad plan. So is it bad for me to write a whole roadmap of books that are planned for after the first book? | gnp4r16 | go8dk62 | 1,613,514,265 | 1,613,920,655 | 0 | 1 | It depends. There's no real rule for it. If you want to be sure that your main story arc (inside the entire series) is cohesive, it can work well. Just be sure not to spend your entire time planning, and not writing. I wrote a world where there are 12 books in it, the 12th to be published shortly. With that one, the only real plan I had in place was for the 4th series, and those 3 books in that series. However, I also wrote that entire world where I had books written that I didn't know *would* be for that world, and when I edited them, they turned out to be perfect to branch off in that world. So both work as long as you're not spending all your time planning, and not working. Nothing wrong with plotting it out if it's helping you to see where to take things. Also, it's best not to think you have to stay on that path. If something changes? Let it. Can always alter it in edits. | I think it’s a good thing to an extent because yes, you can use the new plot points to foreshadow and help direct what happens now so that when you get to the later stuff the reader goes “oooo!”. However, I do also agree that there’s a lot of things down this wormhole that can ultimately become distractions as a writer. I write out plot points on sticky notes so I can move them around. I would say if you have a brilliant idea come around, write it on a sticky note and tuck it away. You can see it whenever you need the reminder it will happen but you can also move it around to where it needs to be later, without hindering what you’re doing now. Likely you won’t end up with too many sticky notes before you finish the first book but you won’t lose any plot ideas either. Good luck! | 0 | 406,390 | 1,000 | ||
vm91ra | writing_train | 0.95 | Don't focus on originality. It is okay to be inspired, not all ideas have to be original. I don't know who needs to hear this. For a long time, I struggled with the concept of being entirely original. It is not necessary to worry about that, and it is often not possible. My favorite genres are fantasy, urban-fantasy, science-fiction (especially in space), and psychological, existential horror. All of these genres are saturated with hundreds of thousands of books, from amazing to mediocre. Overall, there are millions and millions of books published. Between every physical book brought out by a physical publisher, every book published online, and every work of fan-fiction, the vast majority of neat ideas have already been done, most likely multiple times. Don't overcomplicate your writing to account for this. You don't need to contrive a cybernetically enhanced dragon that shoots lightning into your story, and Yu-Gi-Oh and Spyro have already beaten you to the punch. Write a normal dragon into your story if you're a novice writer, that is already a fictious creature that takes a lot of words and effort to write convincingly. Yes, the concept of a dragon, or drake, or wyvern has been around in fiction and mythology for thousands of years. It's not original, and this is not bad. Fans of fantasy know what a dragon is. Look at this as a positive: You aren't trying to create a fully original species and get your reader to visualize it the same way you do. Your only writing challenge here is to convey whether its a European dragon, Chinese dragon, or one of those two-legged ones without using terms from our world and history. If you read a book that you love, or watch an amazing TV series, or play a video game that gives you pages and pages of inspiration, there is no cause to feel bad about that. Do not engage in plagiarism, of course; don't rip off cool ideas word for word and try to say it's all your idea. Even the biggest and most well known fictional universes were inspired by works that came before them. It is human nature to inspire one another with stories of mythos and impossible things; this has been so for thousands of years. Even the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans were inspired by earlier stories. As a personal example, I just shattered a writer's block and wrote several pages of notes and ideas for my own fantasy worlds after playing the game *Heaven's Vault.* Then I played it again. Then I played it a third time and scoured the world for every single last secret. The concept of highly advanced technology that is also an ancient artifact intrigues me. I have been trying to write sufficiently advanced technology merged with sufficiently advanced magic for a while, and this is the impetus I needed. Some tech from hundreds to thousands of years ago still survived and has been restored to working order. But how it works, who made it, where it came from; these facts are unknown until you discover them. The idea that extremely advanced technology can be the domain of an archaeologist given enough time and progress is very fascinating to me. I can take this inspiration, apply it to my own writing, and if anyone asks what inspired me, be proud to say *Heaven's Vault* did, because it is an incredible game that everyone should play. Find inspiration and use it, don't go out of your way to try and avoid it. We are inspired every day by everything we see, hear and do. For creative types who pour what they know into artistic expression, this unique personal vantage on the world is what appears in their work. | idzseo2 | idzrooe | 1,656,375,184 | 1,656,374,841 | 33 | 5 | There's no such thing as an original idea. There's only original writing. | You don't have to be purely original but at least, sometimes, original. | 1 | 343 | 6.6 | ||
vm91ra | writing_train | 0.95 | Don't focus on originality. It is okay to be inspired, not all ideas have to be original. I don't know who needs to hear this. For a long time, I struggled with the concept of being entirely original. It is not necessary to worry about that, and it is often not possible. My favorite genres are fantasy, urban-fantasy, science-fiction (especially in space), and psychological, existential horror. All of these genres are saturated with hundreds of thousands of books, from amazing to mediocre. Overall, there are millions and millions of books published. Between every physical book brought out by a physical publisher, every book published online, and every work of fan-fiction, the vast majority of neat ideas have already been done, most likely multiple times. Don't overcomplicate your writing to account for this. You don't need to contrive a cybernetically enhanced dragon that shoots lightning into your story, and Yu-Gi-Oh and Spyro have already beaten you to the punch. Write a normal dragon into your story if you're a novice writer, that is already a fictious creature that takes a lot of words and effort to write convincingly. Yes, the concept of a dragon, or drake, or wyvern has been around in fiction and mythology for thousands of years. It's not original, and this is not bad. Fans of fantasy know what a dragon is. Look at this as a positive: You aren't trying to create a fully original species and get your reader to visualize it the same way you do. Your only writing challenge here is to convey whether its a European dragon, Chinese dragon, or one of those two-legged ones without using terms from our world and history. If you read a book that you love, or watch an amazing TV series, or play a video game that gives you pages and pages of inspiration, there is no cause to feel bad about that. Do not engage in plagiarism, of course; don't rip off cool ideas word for word and try to say it's all your idea. Even the biggest and most well known fictional universes were inspired by works that came before them. It is human nature to inspire one another with stories of mythos and impossible things; this has been so for thousands of years. Even the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans were inspired by earlier stories. As a personal example, I just shattered a writer's block and wrote several pages of notes and ideas for my own fantasy worlds after playing the game *Heaven's Vault.* Then I played it again. Then I played it a third time and scoured the world for every single last secret. The concept of highly advanced technology that is also an ancient artifact intrigues me. I have been trying to write sufficiently advanced technology merged with sufficiently advanced magic for a while, and this is the impetus I needed. Some tech from hundreds to thousands of years ago still survived and has been restored to working order. But how it works, who made it, where it came from; these facts are unknown until you discover them. The idea that extremely advanced technology can be the domain of an archaeologist given enough time and progress is very fascinating to me. I can take this inspiration, apply it to my own writing, and if anyone asks what inspired me, be proud to say *Heaven's Vault* did, because it is an incredible game that everyone should play. Find inspiration and use it, don't go out of your way to try and avoid it. We are inspired every day by everything we see, hear and do. For creative types who pour what they know into artistic expression, this unique personal vantage on the world is what appears in their work. | idzrooe | ie1by4e | 1,656,374,841 | 1,656,410,232 | 5 | 13 | You don't have to be purely original but at least, sometimes, original. | If you pour your soul into your writing, it will be original, because every human is different. | 0 | 35,391 | 2.6 | ||
vm91ra | writing_train | 0.95 | Don't focus on originality. It is okay to be inspired, not all ideas have to be original. I don't know who needs to hear this. For a long time, I struggled with the concept of being entirely original. It is not necessary to worry about that, and it is often not possible. My favorite genres are fantasy, urban-fantasy, science-fiction (especially in space), and psychological, existential horror. All of these genres are saturated with hundreds of thousands of books, from amazing to mediocre. Overall, there are millions and millions of books published. Between every physical book brought out by a physical publisher, every book published online, and every work of fan-fiction, the vast majority of neat ideas have already been done, most likely multiple times. Don't overcomplicate your writing to account for this. You don't need to contrive a cybernetically enhanced dragon that shoots lightning into your story, and Yu-Gi-Oh and Spyro have already beaten you to the punch. Write a normal dragon into your story if you're a novice writer, that is already a fictious creature that takes a lot of words and effort to write convincingly. Yes, the concept of a dragon, or drake, or wyvern has been around in fiction and mythology for thousands of years. It's not original, and this is not bad. Fans of fantasy know what a dragon is. Look at this as a positive: You aren't trying to create a fully original species and get your reader to visualize it the same way you do. Your only writing challenge here is to convey whether its a European dragon, Chinese dragon, or one of those two-legged ones without using terms from our world and history. If you read a book that you love, or watch an amazing TV series, or play a video game that gives you pages and pages of inspiration, there is no cause to feel bad about that. Do not engage in plagiarism, of course; don't rip off cool ideas word for word and try to say it's all your idea. Even the biggest and most well known fictional universes were inspired by works that came before them. It is human nature to inspire one another with stories of mythos and impossible things; this has been so for thousands of years. Even the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans were inspired by earlier stories. As a personal example, I just shattered a writer's block and wrote several pages of notes and ideas for my own fantasy worlds after playing the game *Heaven's Vault.* Then I played it again. Then I played it a third time and scoured the world for every single last secret. The concept of highly advanced technology that is also an ancient artifact intrigues me. I have been trying to write sufficiently advanced technology merged with sufficiently advanced magic for a while, and this is the impetus I needed. Some tech from hundreds to thousands of years ago still survived and has been restored to working order. But how it works, who made it, where it came from; these facts are unknown until you discover them. The idea that extremely advanced technology can be the domain of an archaeologist given enough time and progress is very fascinating to me. I can take this inspiration, apply it to my own writing, and if anyone asks what inspired me, be proud to say *Heaven's Vault* did, because it is an incredible game that everyone should play. Find inspiration and use it, don't go out of your way to try and avoid it. We are inspired every day by everything we see, hear and do. For creative types who pour what they know into artistic expression, this unique personal vantage on the world is what appears in their work. | ie17qhr | ie1by4e | 1,656,406,573 | 1,656,410,232 | 6 | 13 | The book I'm writing is inspired from an Anime. More of a 'genre' of anime, but when I explain my book's plot, Anime-watchers go "Wow, that sounds like [Anime]!" One of my beta readers said that, and they love my story. Sure, it's inspired, but it holds its own. It probably helps that I got inspired off doing a better job than the anime in question. >_> The whole reason I started this book is because a friend asked about an anime I had watched years ago, and I said it wasn't really worth the investment. I basically said: The first episode is great, you get a feel for the world a bit, the plot is introduced and is a great idea Buuuut.... Then it timeskips to a month later, then another time skip... and, well, lots of time skips. Two years go by in 12 episodes, and you don't see much of the world, like, at all. I wanted to see MORE, not only the drama between the characters (Which there is only a few key characters with a lot of side characters you see once or twice before never seeing again...) Long story short - I got a lot of ideas on how it could've been better while being different to make it unique, and that's what I did/am doing. It's fine to be inspired from other things. Original ideas don't come around very often anymore. Everything is inspired from something else. As long as it isn't a "Copy my homework but change the answers", you'll be fine. | If you pour your soul into your writing, it will be original, because every human is different. | 0 | 3,659 | 2.166667 | ||
vm91ra | writing_train | 0.95 | Don't focus on originality. It is okay to be inspired, not all ideas have to be original. I don't know who needs to hear this. For a long time, I struggled with the concept of being entirely original. It is not necessary to worry about that, and it is often not possible. My favorite genres are fantasy, urban-fantasy, science-fiction (especially in space), and psychological, existential horror. All of these genres are saturated with hundreds of thousands of books, from amazing to mediocre. Overall, there are millions and millions of books published. Between every physical book brought out by a physical publisher, every book published online, and every work of fan-fiction, the vast majority of neat ideas have already been done, most likely multiple times. Don't overcomplicate your writing to account for this. You don't need to contrive a cybernetically enhanced dragon that shoots lightning into your story, and Yu-Gi-Oh and Spyro have already beaten you to the punch. Write a normal dragon into your story if you're a novice writer, that is already a fictious creature that takes a lot of words and effort to write convincingly. Yes, the concept of a dragon, or drake, or wyvern has been around in fiction and mythology for thousands of years. It's not original, and this is not bad. Fans of fantasy know what a dragon is. Look at this as a positive: You aren't trying to create a fully original species and get your reader to visualize it the same way you do. Your only writing challenge here is to convey whether its a European dragon, Chinese dragon, or one of those two-legged ones without using terms from our world and history. If you read a book that you love, or watch an amazing TV series, or play a video game that gives you pages and pages of inspiration, there is no cause to feel bad about that. Do not engage in plagiarism, of course; don't rip off cool ideas word for word and try to say it's all your idea. Even the biggest and most well known fictional universes were inspired by works that came before them. It is human nature to inspire one another with stories of mythos and impossible things; this has been so for thousands of years. Even the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans were inspired by earlier stories. As a personal example, I just shattered a writer's block and wrote several pages of notes and ideas for my own fantasy worlds after playing the game *Heaven's Vault.* Then I played it again. Then I played it a third time and scoured the world for every single last secret. The concept of highly advanced technology that is also an ancient artifact intrigues me. I have been trying to write sufficiently advanced technology merged with sufficiently advanced magic for a while, and this is the impetus I needed. Some tech from hundreds to thousands of years ago still survived and has been restored to working order. But how it works, who made it, where it came from; these facts are unknown until you discover them. The idea that extremely advanced technology can be the domain of an archaeologist given enough time and progress is very fascinating to me. I can take this inspiration, apply it to my own writing, and if anyone asks what inspired me, be proud to say *Heaven's Vault* did, because it is an incredible game that everyone should play. Find inspiration and use it, don't go out of your way to try and avoid it. We are inspired every day by everything we see, hear and do. For creative types who pour what they know into artistic expression, this unique personal vantage on the world is what appears in their work. | ie17y4k | ie1by4e | 1,656,406,758 | 1,656,410,232 | 3 | 13 | Exactly. Get that first draft finished, worry if it's original later. | If you pour your soul into your writing, it will be original, because every human is different. | 0 | 3,474 | 4.333333 | ||
vm91ra | writing_train | 0.95 | Don't focus on originality. It is okay to be inspired, not all ideas have to be original. I don't know who needs to hear this. For a long time, I struggled with the concept of being entirely original. It is not necessary to worry about that, and it is often not possible. My favorite genres are fantasy, urban-fantasy, science-fiction (especially in space), and psychological, existential horror. All of these genres are saturated with hundreds of thousands of books, from amazing to mediocre. Overall, there are millions and millions of books published. Between every physical book brought out by a physical publisher, every book published online, and every work of fan-fiction, the vast majority of neat ideas have already been done, most likely multiple times. Don't overcomplicate your writing to account for this. You don't need to contrive a cybernetically enhanced dragon that shoots lightning into your story, and Yu-Gi-Oh and Spyro have already beaten you to the punch. Write a normal dragon into your story if you're a novice writer, that is already a fictious creature that takes a lot of words and effort to write convincingly. Yes, the concept of a dragon, or drake, or wyvern has been around in fiction and mythology for thousands of years. It's not original, and this is not bad. Fans of fantasy know what a dragon is. Look at this as a positive: You aren't trying to create a fully original species and get your reader to visualize it the same way you do. Your only writing challenge here is to convey whether its a European dragon, Chinese dragon, or one of those two-legged ones without using terms from our world and history. If you read a book that you love, or watch an amazing TV series, or play a video game that gives you pages and pages of inspiration, there is no cause to feel bad about that. Do not engage in plagiarism, of course; don't rip off cool ideas word for word and try to say it's all your idea. Even the biggest and most well known fictional universes were inspired by works that came before them. It is human nature to inspire one another with stories of mythos and impossible things; this has been so for thousands of years. Even the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans were inspired by earlier stories. As a personal example, I just shattered a writer's block and wrote several pages of notes and ideas for my own fantasy worlds after playing the game *Heaven's Vault.* Then I played it again. Then I played it a third time and scoured the world for every single last secret. The concept of highly advanced technology that is also an ancient artifact intrigues me. I have been trying to write sufficiently advanced technology merged with sufficiently advanced magic for a while, and this is the impetus I needed. Some tech from hundreds to thousands of years ago still survived and has been restored to working order. But how it works, who made it, where it came from; these facts are unknown until you discover them. The idea that extremely advanced technology can be the domain of an archaeologist given enough time and progress is very fascinating to me. I can take this inspiration, apply it to my own writing, and if anyone asks what inspired me, be proud to say *Heaven's Vault* did, because it is an incredible game that everyone should play. Find inspiration and use it, don't go out of your way to try and avoid it. We are inspired every day by everything we see, hear and do. For creative types who pour what they know into artistic expression, this unique personal vantage on the world is what appears in their work. | idzrooe | ie17qhr | 1,656,374,841 | 1,656,406,573 | 5 | 6 | You don't have to be purely original but at least, sometimes, original. | The book I'm writing is inspired from an Anime. More of a 'genre' of anime, but when I explain my book's plot, Anime-watchers go "Wow, that sounds like [Anime]!" One of my beta readers said that, and they love my story. Sure, it's inspired, but it holds its own. It probably helps that I got inspired off doing a better job than the anime in question. >_> The whole reason I started this book is because a friend asked about an anime I had watched years ago, and I said it wasn't really worth the investment. I basically said: The first episode is great, you get a feel for the world a bit, the plot is introduced and is a great idea Buuuut.... Then it timeskips to a month later, then another time skip... and, well, lots of time skips. Two years go by in 12 episodes, and you don't see much of the world, like, at all. I wanted to see MORE, not only the drama between the characters (Which there is only a few key characters with a lot of side characters you see once or twice before never seeing again...) Long story short - I got a lot of ideas on how it could've been better while being different to make it unique, and that's what I did/am doing. It's fine to be inspired from other things. Original ideas don't come around very often anymore. Everything is inspired from something else. As long as it isn't a "Copy my homework but change the answers", you'll be fine. | 0 | 31,732 | 1.2 | ||
vm91ra | writing_train | 0.95 | Don't focus on originality. It is okay to be inspired, not all ideas have to be original. I don't know who needs to hear this. For a long time, I struggled with the concept of being entirely original. It is not necessary to worry about that, and it is often not possible. My favorite genres are fantasy, urban-fantasy, science-fiction (especially in space), and psychological, existential horror. All of these genres are saturated with hundreds of thousands of books, from amazing to mediocre. Overall, there are millions and millions of books published. Between every physical book brought out by a physical publisher, every book published online, and every work of fan-fiction, the vast majority of neat ideas have already been done, most likely multiple times. Don't overcomplicate your writing to account for this. You don't need to contrive a cybernetically enhanced dragon that shoots lightning into your story, and Yu-Gi-Oh and Spyro have already beaten you to the punch. Write a normal dragon into your story if you're a novice writer, that is already a fictious creature that takes a lot of words and effort to write convincingly. Yes, the concept of a dragon, or drake, or wyvern has been around in fiction and mythology for thousands of years. It's not original, and this is not bad. Fans of fantasy know what a dragon is. Look at this as a positive: You aren't trying to create a fully original species and get your reader to visualize it the same way you do. Your only writing challenge here is to convey whether its a European dragon, Chinese dragon, or one of those two-legged ones without using terms from our world and history. If you read a book that you love, or watch an amazing TV series, or play a video game that gives you pages and pages of inspiration, there is no cause to feel bad about that. Do not engage in plagiarism, of course; don't rip off cool ideas word for word and try to say it's all your idea. Even the biggest and most well known fictional universes were inspired by works that came before them. It is human nature to inspire one another with stories of mythos and impossible things; this has been so for thousands of years. Even the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans were inspired by earlier stories. As a personal example, I just shattered a writer's block and wrote several pages of notes and ideas for my own fantasy worlds after playing the game *Heaven's Vault.* Then I played it again. Then I played it a third time and scoured the world for every single last secret. The concept of highly advanced technology that is also an ancient artifact intrigues me. I have been trying to write sufficiently advanced technology merged with sufficiently advanced magic for a while, and this is the impetus I needed. Some tech from hundreds to thousands of years ago still survived and has been restored to working order. But how it works, who made it, where it came from; these facts are unknown until you discover them. The idea that extremely advanced technology can be the domain of an archaeologist given enough time and progress is very fascinating to me. I can take this inspiration, apply it to my own writing, and if anyone asks what inspired me, be proud to say *Heaven's Vault* did, because it is an incredible game that everyone should play. Find inspiration and use it, don't go out of your way to try and avoid it. We are inspired every day by everything we see, hear and do. For creative types who pour what they know into artistic expression, this unique personal vantage on the world is what appears in their work. | ie1e7lk | ie17y4k | 1,656,412,072 | 1,656,406,758 | 4 | 3 | Just wanna point out, Shakespeare is commonly called the greatest writer in the English language. Most of his plots were directly lifted from other source materials. Sometimes he even cribbed entire passages from history books and reproduced them almost word-for-word, like the famous barge speech from *Antony and Cleopatra*. Of course, Shakespeare was a poet. He made changes, he played with the meter, he added alliteration and diacope and all kinds of rhetorical tricks. He wouldn't be remembered if he'd only copied things other people had already written. But that was his starting point. He took existing material and made it emotive, exciting, and memorable. | Exactly. Get that first draft finished, worry if it's original later. | 1 | 5,314 | 1.333333 | ||
vm91ra | writing_train | 0.95 | Don't focus on originality. It is okay to be inspired, not all ideas have to be original. I don't know who needs to hear this. For a long time, I struggled with the concept of being entirely original. It is not necessary to worry about that, and it is often not possible. My favorite genres are fantasy, urban-fantasy, science-fiction (especially in space), and psychological, existential horror. All of these genres are saturated with hundreds of thousands of books, from amazing to mediocre. Overall, there are millions and millions of books published. Between every physical book brought out by a physical publisher, every book published online, and every work of fan-fiction, the vast majority of neat ideas have already been done, most likely multiple times. Don't overcomplicate your writing to account for this. You don't need to contrive a cybernetically enhanced dragon that shoots lightning into your story, and Yu-Gi-Oh and Spyro have already beaten you to the punch. Write a normal dragon into your story if you're a novice writer, that is already a fictious creature that takes a lot of words and effort to write convincingly. Yes, the concept of a dragon, or drake, or wyvern has been around in fiction and mythology for thousands of years. It's not original, and this is not bad. Fans of fantasy know what a dragon is. Look at this as a positive: You aren't trying to create a fully original species and get your reader to visualize it the same way you do. Your only writing challenge here is to convey whether its a European dragon, Chinese dragon, or one of those two-legged ones without using terms from our world and history. If you read a book that you love, or watch an amazing TV series, or play a video game that gives you pages and pages of inspiration, there is no cause to feel bad about that. Do not engage in plagiarism, of course; don't rip off cool ideas word for word and try to say it's all your idea. Even the biggest and most well known fictional universes were inspired by works that came before them. It is human nature to inspire one another with stories of mythos and impossible things; this has been so for thousands of years. Even the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans were inspired by earlier stories. As a personal example, I just shattered a writer's block and wrote several pages of notes and ideas for my own fantasy worlds after playing the game *Heaven's Vault.* Then I played it again. Then I played it a third time and scoured the world for every single last secret. The concept of highly advanced technology that is also an ancient artifact intrigues me. I have been trying to write sufficiently advanced technology merged with sufficiently advanced magic for a while, and this is the impetus I needed. Some tech from hundreds to thousands of years ago still survived and has been restored to working order. But how it works, who made it, where it came from; these facts are unknown until you discover them. The idea that extremely advanced technology can be the domain of an archaeologist given enough time and progress is very fascinating to me. I can take this inspiration, apply it to my own writing, and if anyone asks what inspired me, be proud to say *Heaven's Vault* did, because it is an incredible game that everyone should play. Find inspiration and use it, don't go out of your way to try and avoid it. We are inspired every day by everything we see, hear and do. For creative types who pour what they know into artistic expression, this unique personal vantage on the world is what appears in their work. | ie1ml15 | ie3smyx | 1,656,417,760 | 1,656,450,508 | 1 | 2 | I also discovered that pretty much nothing I create will be original. Since our knowledge and perspectives are formed from others, its unreasonable to create something in a void when we create based on what we read and know. Its like trying to write an original academic paper without reading any other study. Its unreasonable to think that what you create must somehow be completely original, without any sort of reference to something that already exists. The greatest thinkers never became well known for creating original ideas, but rather creating through the knowledge they have already accumulated. The greatest inventors worked off existing knowledge and ideas to create. They create not in a void, but rather in the connections and knowledge they have accumulated. Being creative is not being original, but rather making connections with what you already know. | I mean… there's a book out now I think, titled "Steal like an artist" sooo… | 0 | 32,748 | 2 | ||
vm91ra | writing_train | 0.95 | Don't focus on originality. It is okay to be inspired, not all ideas have to be original. I don't know who needs to hear this. For a long time, I struggled with the concept of being entirely original. It is not necessary to worry about that, and it is often not possible. My favorite genres are fantasy, urban-fantasy, science-fiction (especially in space), and psychological, existential horror. All of these genres are saturated with hundreds of thousands of books, from amazing to mediocre. Overall, there are millions and millions of books published. Between every physical book brought out by a physical publisher, every book published online, and every work of fan-fiction, the vast majority of neat ideas have already been done, most likely multiple times. Don't overcomplicate your writing to account for this. You don't need to contrive a cybernetically enhanced dragon that shoots lightning into your story, and Yu-Gi-Oh and Spyro have already beaten you to the punch. Write a normal dragon into your story if you're a novice writer, that is already a fictious creature that takes a lot of words and effort to write convincingly. Yes, the concept of a dragon, or drake, or wyvern has been around in fiction and mythology for thousands of years. It's not original, and this is not bad. Fans of fantasy know what a dragon is. Look at this as a positive: You aren't trying to create a fully original species and get your reader to visualize it the same way you do. Your only writing challenge here is to convey whether its a European dragon, Chinese dragon, or one of those two-legged ones without using terms from our world and history. If you read a book that you love, or watch an amazing TV series, or play a video game that gives you pages and pages of inspiration, there is no cause to feel bad about that. Do not engage in plagiarism, of course; don't rip off cool ideas word for word and try to say it's all your idea. Even the biggest and most well known fictional universes were inspired by works that came before them. It is human nature to inspire one another with stories of mythos and impossible things; this has been so for thousands of years. Even the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans were inspired by earlier stories. As a personal example, I just shattered a writer's block and wrote several pages of notes and ideas for my own fantasy worlds after playing the game *Heaven's Vault.* Then I played it again. Then I played it a third time and scoured the world for every single last secret. The concept of highly advanced technology that is also an ancient artifact intrigues me. I have been trying to write sufficiently advanced technology merged with sufficiently advanced magic for a while, and this is the impetus I needed. Some tech from hundreds to thousands of years ago still survived and has been restored to working order. But how it works, who made it, where it came from; these facts are unknown until you discover them. The idea that extremely advanced technology can be the domain of an archaeologist given enough time and progress is very fascinating to me. I can take this inspiration, apply it to my own writing, and if anyone asks what inspired me, be proud to say *Heaven's Vault* did, because it is an incredible game that everyone should play. Find inspiration and use it, don't go out of your way to try and avoid it. We are inspired every day by everything we see, hear and do. For creative types who pour what they know into artistic expression, this unique personal vantage on the world is what appears in their work. | ie3smyx | ie1rrty | 1,656,450,508 | 1,656,420,637 | 2 | 1 | I mean… there's a book out now I think, titled "Steal like an artist" sooo… | Cloud Atlas has a very good line for this that goes something like, “It’s the *how,* not the *what.*” Old ideas will always draw an audience. Creative execution is what will make them stick around. | 1 | 29,871 | 2 | ||
vm91ra | writing_train | 0.95 | Don't focus on originality. It is okay to be inspired, not all ideas have to be original. I don't know who needs to hear this. For a long time, I struggled with the concept of being entirely original. It is not necessary to worry about that, and it is often not possible. My favorite genres are fantasy, urban-fantasy, science-fiction (especially in space), and psychological, existential horror. All of these genres are saturated with hundreds of thousands of books, from amazing to mediocre. Overall, there are millions and millions of books published. Between every physical book brought out by a physical publisher, every book published online, and every work of fan-fiction, the vast majority of neat ideas have already been done, most likely multiple times. Don't overcomplicate your writing to account for this. You don't need to contrive a cybernetically enhanced dragon that shoots lightning into your story, and Yu-Gi-Oh and Spyro have already beaten you to the punch. Write a normal dragon into your story if you're a novice writer, that is already a fictious creature that takes a lot of words and effort to write convincingly. Yes, the concept of a dragon, or drake, or wyvern has been around in fiction and mythology for thousands of years. It's not original, and this is not bad. Fans of fantasy know what a dragon is. Look at this as a positive: You aren't trying to create a fully original species and get your reader to visualize it the same way you do. Your only writing challenge here is to convey whether its a European dragon, Chinese dragon, or one of those two-legged ones without using terms from our world and history. If you read a book that you love, or watch an amazing TV series, or play a video game that gives you pages and pages of inspiration, there is no cause to feel bad about that. Do not engage in plagiarism, of course; don't rip off cool ideas word for word and try to say it's all your idea. Even the biggest and most well known fictional universes were inspired by works that came before them. It is human nature to inspire one another with stories of mythos and impossible things; this has been so for thousands of years. Even the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans were inspired by earlier stories. As a personal example, I just shattered a writer's block and wrote several pages of notes and ideas for my own fantasy worlds after playing the game *Heaven's Vault.* Then I played it again. Then I played it a third time and scoured the world for every single last secret. The concept of highly advanced technology that is also an ancient artifact intrigues me. I have been trying to write sufficiently advanced technology merged with sufficiently advanced magic for a while, and this is the impetus I needed. Some tech from hundreds to thousands of years ago still survived and has been restored to working order. But how it works, who made it, where it came from; these facts are unknown until you discover them. The idea that extremely advanced technology can be the domain of an archaeologist given enough time and progress is very fascinating to me. I can take this inspiration, apply it to my own writing, and if anyone asks what inspired me, be proud to say *Heaven's Vault* did, because it is an incredible game that everyone should play. Find inspiration and use it, don't go out of your way to try and avoid it. We are inspired every day by everything we see, hear and do. For creative types who pour what they know into artistic expression, this unique personal vantage on the world is what appears in their work. | ie2mwy5 | ie3smyx | 1,656,433,979 | 1,656,450,508 | 1 | 2 | Working on a character right now who's so much like Raistlin Majere from dragonlance, and i didn't even mean for that to happen. My character's not a power hungry mage, but he still has red robes and long white hair due to pushing himself with magic. He's a selfoverdoer type, not greedy or addicted to magic. I take a tad more inspiration from Urza Planeswalker from MTG too, but wow. When I saw the similarities of my character and Raistlin Majere i was like... shit. 😆 | I mean… there's a book out now I think, titled "Steal like an artist" sooo… | 0 | 16,529 | 2 | ||
vm91ra | writing_train | 0.95 | Don't focus on originality. It is okay to be inspired, not all ideas have to be original. I don't know who needs to hear this. For a long time, I struggled with the concept of being entirely original. It is not necessary to worry about that, and it is often not possible. My favorite genres are fantasy, urban-fantasy, science-fiction (especially in space), and psychological, existential horror. All of these genres are saturated with hundreds of thousands of books, from amazing to mediocre. Overall, there are millions and millions of books published. Between every physical book brought out by a physical publisher, every book published online, and every work of fan-fiction, the vast majority of neat ideas have already been done, most likely multiple times. Don't overcomplicate your writing to account for this. You don't need to contrive a cybernetically enhanced dragon that shoots lightning into your story, and Yu-Gi-Oh and Spyro have already beaten you to the punch. Write a normal dragon into your story if you're a novice writer, that is already a fictious creature that takes a lot of words and effort to write convincingly. Yes, the concept of a dragon, or drake, or wyvern has been around in fiction and mythology for thousands of years. It's not original, and this is not bad. Fans of fantasy know what a dragon is. Look at this as a positive: You aren't trying to create a fully original species and get your reader to visualize it the same way you do. Your only writing challenge here is to convey whether its a European dragon, Chinese dragon, or one of those two-legged ones without using terms from our world and history. If you read a book that you love, or watch an amazing TV series, or play a video game that gives you pages and pages of inspiration, there is no cause to feel bad about that. Do not engage in plagiarism, of course; don't rip off cool ideas word for word and try to say it's all your idea. Even the biggest and most well known fictional universes were inspired by works that came before them. It is human nature to inspire one another with stories of mythos and impossible things; this has been so for thousands of years. Even the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans were inspired by earlier stories. As a personal example, I just shattered a writer's block and wrote several pages of notes and ideas for my own fantasy worlds after playing the game *Heaven's Vault.* Then I played it again. Then I played it a third time and scoured the world for every single last secret. The concept of highly advanced technology that is also an ancient artifact intrigues me. I have been trying to write sufficiently advanced technology merged with sufficiently advanced magic for a while, and this is the impetus I needed. Some tech from hundreds to thousands of years ago still survived and has been restored to working order. But how it works, who made it, where it came from; these facts are unknown until you discover them. The idea that extremely advanced technology can be the domain of an archaeologist given enough time and progress is very fascinating to me. I can take this inspiration, apply it to my own writing, and if anyone asks what inspired me, be proud to say *Heaven's Vault* did, because it is an incredible game that everyone should play. Find inspiration and use it, don't go out of your way to try and avoid it. We are inspired every day by everything we see, hear and do. For creative types who pour what they know into artistic expression, this unique personal vantage on the world is what appears in their work. | ie3smyx | ie2zson | 1,656,450,508 | 1,656,439,005 | 2 | 1 | I mean… there's a book out now I think, titled "Steal like an artist" sooo… | I honestly believe that a lot of writers have to focus more on learning to be conventional, and doing it damn good (which is essentially what originality is). | 1 | 11,503 | 2 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx6kair | hx6vpiv | 1,645,024,969 | 1,645,029,357 | 5 | 17 | You should change their names. This is how most people come up with their characters and the situations they write about. Even when you write creative non fiction... which is my primary writing output... you come to realize that you see only a small snippet of the people you're writing about. When I write a true story about, even my best friend, who I know so well... I don't fully know him. There's always parts that are hidden to me. As your comment relates to fiction, I want to tell you, this desire, to put people you know into new and interesting scenarios is healthy and common. They won't be your friends, they'll be new characters you made up, but because you're basing them off real people and exploring emotions and incidents that really happened, you'll gain greater empathy for them. You'll understand your friends better, and you'll be able to create more realistic fictional characters. You're exploring what it means to be human, what you think, what other people think, and that'll make your art shine. Good luck with this project. | Well there's always the "small penis rule", but that's not fool-proof if you're otherwise too obvious. >The small penis rule is an informal strategy used by authors to evade libel lawsuits. It was described in a New York Times article by Dinitia Smith in 1998: >"For a fictional portrait to be actionable, it must be so accurate that a reader of the book would have no problem linking the two," said Mr. Friedman. Thus, he continued, libel lawyers have what is known as "the small penis rule". One way authors can protect themselves from libel suits is to say that a character has a small penis, Mr. Friedman said. "Now no male is going to come forward and say, 'That character with a very small penis, that's me!'"[1] >The small penis rule was referenced in a 2006 dispute between Michael Crowley and Michael Crichton. Crowley alleged that after he wrote an unflattering review of Crichton's novel State of Fear, Crichton included a character named "Mick Crowley" in the novel Next. The character is a child rapist, described as being a Washington, D.C.–based journalist and Yale graduate with a small penis.[2] | 0 | 4,388 | 3.4 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx6vpiv | hx6o4at | 1,645,029,357 | 1,645,026,469 | 17 | 3 | Well there's always the "small penis rule", but that's not fool-proof if you're otherwise too obvious. >The small penis rule is an informal strategy used by authors to evade libel lawsuits. It was described in a New York Times article by Dinitia Smith in 1998: >"For a fictional portrait to be actionable, it must be so accurate that a reader of the book would have no problem linking the two," said Mr. Friedman. Thus, he continued, libel lawyers have what is known as "the small penis rule". One way authors can protect themselves from libel suits is to say that a character has a small penis, Mr. Friedman said. "Now no male is going to come forward and say, 'That character with a very small penis, that's me!'"[1] >The small penis rule was referenced in a 2006 dispute between Michael Crowley and Michael Crichton. Crowley alleged that after he wrote an unflattering review of Crichton's novel State of Fear, Crichton included a character named "Mick Crowley" in the novel Next. The character is a child rapist, described as being a Washington, D.C.–based journalist and Yale graduate with a small penis.[2] | File off the serial numbers and you’re good to go. File them off well enough that people who know you won’t be certain about it. | 1 | 2,888 | 5.666667 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx6pa3t | hx6vpiv | 1,645,026,916 | 1,645,029,357 | 3 | 17 | I mean that is basically all fiction is. You draw from experience to create. Everything you create has its roots in reality. | Well there's always the "small penis rule", but that's not fool-proof if you're otherwise too obvious. >The small penis rule is an informal strategy used by authors to evade libel lawsuits. It was described in a New York Times article by Dinitia Smith in 1998: >"For a fictional portrait to be actionable, it must be so accurate that a reader of the book would have no problem linking the two," said Mr. Friedman. Thus, he continued, libel lawyers have what is known as "the small penis rule". One way authors can protect themselves from libel suits is to say that a character has a small penis, Mr. Friedman said. "Now no male is going to come forward and say, 'That character with a very small penis, that's me!'"[1] >The small penis rule was referenced in a 2006 dispute between Michael Crowley and Michael Crichton. Crowley alleged that after he wrote an unflattering review of Crichton's novel State of Fear, Crichton included a character named "Mick Crowley" in the novel Next. The character is a child rapist, described as being a Washington, D.C.–based journalist and Yale graduate with a small penis.[2] | 0 | 2,441 | 5.666667 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx6vpiv | hx6frth | 1,645,029,357 | 1,645,023,132 | 17 | 2 | Well there's always the "small penis rule", but that's not fool-proof if you're otherwise too obvious. >The small penis rule is an informal strategy used by authors to evade libel lawsuits. It was described in a New York Times article by Dinitia Smith in 1998: >"For a fictional portrait to be actionable, it must be so accurate that a reader of the book would have no problem linking the two," said Mr. Friedman. Thus, he continued, libel lawyers have what is known as "the small penis rule". One way authors can protect themselves from libel suits is to say that a character has a small penis, Mr. Friedman said. "Now no male is going to come forward and say, 'That character with a very small penis, that's me!'"[1] >The small penis rule was referenced in a 2006 dispute between Michael Crowley and Michael Crichton. Crowley alleged that after he wrote an unflattering review of Crichton's novel State of Fear, Crichton included a character named "Mick Crowley" in the novel Next. The character is a child rapist, described as being a Washington, D.C.–based journalist and Yale graduate with a small penis.[2] | I’m real up front with the people I’ve based characters on because while the portrayals are not just breathlessly flattering all of the time, they’re _fictionalized_ versions of these individuals. Failing that, there’s always the option of just not telling them that you based X character on them. | 1 | 6,225 | 8.5 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx6kair | hx736wt | 1,645,024,969 | 1,645,032,167 | 5 | 9 | You should change their names. This is how most people come up with their characters and the situations they write about. Even when you write creative non fiction... which is my primary writing output... you come to realize that you see only a small snippet of the people you're writing about. When I write a true story about, even my best friend, who I know so well... I don't fully know him. There's always parts that are hidden to me. As your comment relates to fiction, I want to tell you, this desire, to put people you know into new and interesting scenarios is healthy and common. They won't be your friends, they'll be new characters you made up, but because you're basing them off real people and exploring emotions and incidents that really happened, you'll gain greater empathy for them. You'll understand your friends better, and you'll be able to create more realistic fictional characters. You're exploring what it means to be human, what you think, what other people think, and that'll make your art shine. Good luck with this project. | I would say to be careful. A friend of mine, who I’m realizing isn’t a very good friend, writes from her own experience most of the time, so all of her characters (including herself as the main character) are based on real people. Well, let me tell you, her depictions of us are kind of fucked up. She wrote a short story about someone based on me where the MC gets married and has a horrible relationship and then moves back in with her mom, sobbing. Of course, she sent it to me to read, right before I got married. In her novel, her boyfriend is one of the characters, and the main character, who is based on her, says she’s only with him because he’s loyal and does what she says/wants. In other stories, he’s depicted unfavorably. I’ve talked to her about this very topic and told her that none of us consented to some of the details from our lives being included in a novel or short story meant for publication, because they’re not generic; they’re very specific to us and our lives. I told her a lot of what she writes and how she writes it is straight-up mean, and she agreed and changed some of the characters and their backstory. She also insisted that she doesn’t see me the way I’m depicted in her stories, but I don’t know if I believe her, and either way it really stings to read. So I would ask yourself if it’s worth it to write so closely to real people and include a lot of real details. It could alienate you from people, and there are some ethical issues surrounding consent. My friend has a lot of other issues, including being very competitive, putting me down, manipulating me, and only being close to me when I can offer her something she needs, but, honestly, reading her stories based on me was kind of the last straw, and I’m distancing myself from her now. | 0 | 7,198 | 1.8 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx6o4at | hx736wt | 1,645,026,469 | 1,645,032,167 | 3 | 9 | File off the serial numbers and you’re good to go. File them off well enough that people who know you won’t be certain about it. | I would say to be careful. A friend of mine, who I’m realizing isn’t a very good friend, writes from her own experience most of the time, so all of her characters (including herself as the main character) are based on real people. Well, let me tell you, her depictions of us are kind of fucked up. She wrote a short story about someone based on me where the MC gets married and has a horrible relationship and then moves back in with her mom, sobbing. Of course, she sent it to me to read, right before I got married. In her novel, her boyfriend is one of the characters, and the main character, who is based on her, says she’s only with him because he’s loyal and does what she says/wants. In other stories, he’s depicted unfavorably. I’ve talked to her about this very topic and told her that none of us consented to some of the details from our lives being included in a novel or short story meant for publication, because they’re not generic; they’re very specific to us and our lives. I told her a lot of what she writes and how she writes it is straight-up mean, and she agreed and changed some of the characters and their backstory. She also insisted that she doesn’t see me the way I’m depicted in her stories, but I don’t know if I believe her, and either way it really stings to read. So I would ask yourself if it’s worth it to write so closely to real people and include a lot of real details. It could alienate you from people, and there are some ethical issues surrounding consent. My friend has a lot of other issues, including being very competitive, putting me down, manipulating me, and only being close to me when I can offer her something she needs, but, honestly, reading her stories based on me was kind of the last straw, and I’m distancing myself from her now. | 0 | 5,698 | 3 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx6pa3t | hx736wt | 1,645,026,916 | 1,645,032,167 | 3 | 9 | I mean that is basically all fiction is. You draw from experience to create. Everything you create has its roots in reality. | I would say to be careful. A friend of mine, who I’m realizing isn’t a very good friend, writes from her own experience most of the time, so all of her characters (including herself as the main character) are based on real people. Well, let me tell you, her depictions of us are kind of fucked up. She wrote a short story about someone based on me where the MC gets married and has a horrible relationship and then moves back in with her mom, sobbing. Of course, she sent it to me to read, right before I got married. In her novel, her boyfriend is one of the characters, and the main character, who is based on her, says she’s only with him because he’s loyal and does what she says/wants. In other stories, he’s depicted unfavorably. I’ve talked to her about this very topic and told her that none of us consented to some of the details from our lives being included in a novel or short story meant for publication, because they’re not generic; they’re very specific to us and our lives. I told her a lot of what she writes and how she writes it is straight-up mean, and she agreed and changed some of the characters and their backstory. She also insisted that she doesn’t see me the way I’m depicted in her stories, but I don’t know if I believe her, and either way it really stings to read. So I would ask yourself if it’s worth it to write so closely to real people and include a lot of real details. It could alienate you from people, and there are some ethical issues surrounding consent. My friend has a lot of other issues, including being very competitive, putting me down, manipulating me, and only being close to me when I can offer her something she needs, but, honestly, reading her stories based on me was kind of the last straw, and I’m distancing myself from her now. | 0 | 5,251 | 3 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx736wt | hx6frth | 1,645,032,167 | 1,645,023,132 | 9 | 2 | I would say to be careful. A friend of mine, who I’m realizing isn’t a very good friend, writes from her own experience most of the time, so all of her characters (including herself as the main character) are based on real people. Well, let me tell you, her depictions of us are kind of fucked up. She wrote a short story about someone based on me where the MC gets married and has a horrible relationship and then moves back in with her mom, sobbing. Of course, she sent it to me to read, right before I got married. In her novel, her boyfriend is one of the characters, and the main character, who is based on her, says she’s only with him because he’s loyal and does what she says/wants. In other stories, he’s depicted unfavorably. I’ve talked to her about this very topic and told her that none of us consented to some of the details from our lives being included in a novel or short story meant for publication, because they’re not generic; they’re very specific to us and our lives. I told her a lot of what she writes and how she writes it is straight-up mean, and she agreed and changed some of the characters and their backstory. She also insisted that she doesn’t see me the way I’m depicted in her stories, but I don’t know if I believe her, and either way it really stings to read. So I would ask yourself if it’s worth it to write so closely to real people and include a lot of real details. It could alienate you from people, and there are some ethical issues surrounding consent. My friend has a lot of other issues, including being very competitive, putting me down, manipulating me, and only being close to me when I can offer her something she needs, but, honestly, reading her stories based on me was kind of the last straw, and I’m distancing myself from her now. | I’m real up front with the people I’ve based characters on because while the portrayals are not just breathlessly flattering all of the time, they’re _fictionalized_ versions of these individuals. Failing that, there’s always the option of just not telling them that you based X character on them. | 1 | 9,035 | 4.5 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx6frth | hx6kair | 1,645,023,132 | 1,645,024,969 | 2 | 5 | I’m real up front with the people I’ve based characters on because while the portrayals are not just breathlessly flattering all of the time, they’re _fictionalized_ versions of these individuals. Failing that, there’s always the option of just not telling them that you based X character on them. | You should change their names. This is how most people come up with their characters and the situations they write about. Even when you write creative non fiction... which is my primary writing output... you come to realize that you see only a small snippet of the people you're writing about. When I write a true story about, even my best friend, who I know so well... I don't fully know him. There's always parts that are hidden to me. As your comment relates to fiction, I want to tell you, this desire, to put people you know into new and interesting scenarios is healthy and common. They won't be your friends, they'll be new characters you made up, but because you're basing them off real people and exploring emotions and incidents that really happened, you'll gain greater empathy for them. You'll understand your friends better, and you'll be able to create more realistic fictional characters. You're exploring what it means to be human, what you think, what other people think, and that'll make your art shine. Good luck with this project. | 0 | 1,837 | 2.5 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx6o4at | hx6frth | 1,645,026,469 | 1,645,023,132 | 3 | 2 | File off the serial numbers and you’re good to go. File them off well enough that people who know you won’t be certain about it. | I’m real up front with the people I’ve based characters on because while the portrayals are not just breathlessly flattering all of the time, they’re _fictionalized_ versions of these individuals. Failing that, there’s always the option of just not telling them that you based X character on them. | 1 | 3,337 | 1.5 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx6pa3t | hx6frth | 1,645,026,916 | 1,645,023,132 | 3 | 2 | I mean that is basically all fiction is. You draw from experience to create. Everything you create has its roots in reality. | I’m real up front with the people I’ve based characters on because while the portrayals are not just breathlessly flattering all of the time, they’re _fictionalized_ versions of these individuals. Failing that, there’s always the option of just not telling them that you based X character on them. | 1 | 3,784 | 1.5 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx85ine | hx7d86c | 1,645,047,263 | 1,645,036,363 | 2 | 1 | Legal issues aside, it can be the best compliment, or the worst revenge! | It's always good in the hood, my brother! | 1 | 10,900 | 2 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx7d86c | hx8d61o | 1,645,036,363 | 1,645,050,285 | 1 | 2 | It's always good in the hood, my brother! | Change names and appearance and you are good to go. Bonus points if you use a pen name as author name. And also just like law and order the tv show put a disclaimer 'not based on true story, total coincidence' bla bla bla. | 0 | 13,922 | 2 | ||
stxkgf | writing_train | 0.74 | Is it okay to write real people as characters? I want to write about my own experiences, but not like an autobiography, it'd be more of fictionalized account wrapped up in a murder mystery. Which means I would be coming up with characters based on people I know and not all of them would exactly be flattering representations because it'd involve both good and bad experiences I've had with people in my life and also one of them would turn out to be a murderer. | hx7d86c | hx8fzhl | 1,645,036,363 | 1,645,051,441 | 1 | 2 | It's always good in the hood, my brother! | I base character relationships on comparable ones in the real world. I'm writing a story with a brother and a sister as sub-characters, and while writing scenes for them, I usually go into it asking, "If I were a brain-damaged medical examiner and my brother were a corrupt lawyer, what would we say/do?" The best part is when my brother reads it afterward and says, "That sounded like a conversation we would have." I have also taken inspiration for specific characters from people I know who will never read my work and probably wouldn't care that I'd used them even if they did read it. Mostly when I do this, I go in asking, "If this person were different in this way, what would they be like?" Usually, when I base characters on real people, there's enough that's different about the characters that it doesn't really matter. The names are changed completely, the background is different, the ideology/lifestyle might be wildly different (my brother is not a lawyer, corrupt or otherwise). Their attitudes and behaviors are often similar, some physical characteristics may be similar, but the explanations are completely born of my own imaginings. In short, to answer your question, I think yes. Just don't do it too explicitly. | 0 | 15,078 | 2 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbsk4vn | hbrw6fq | 1,630,923,199 | 1,630,904,184 | 149 | 41 | As a POC, I really don't understand the need of mentioning the character's race, unless it's vital to the story. Mixed race MC's and actors used to be so common and is still quite popular in my country, (even if them being a mixed race or foreign has nothing to do with the story), because anything foreign here is preferred. I'd say just write whatever you want and whatever you're comfortable with. It's still your story after all. Unless you're writing a story set in an actual place that has an actual culture that you're not really familiar with, you're fine. | Unfortunately, leaving it open to interpretation is almost synonymous with making them white. Due to the preponderance of white characters in media, most readers will, by default envision a character as white if there is nothing to suggest otherwise. | 1 | 19,015 | 3.634146 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbsk4vn | hbru9rv | 1,630,923,199 | 1,630,903,001 | 149 | 31 | As a POC, I really don't understand the need of mentioning the character's race, unless it's vital to the story. Mixed race MC's and actors used to be so common and is still quite popular in my country, (even if them being a mixed race or foreign has nothing to do with the story), because anything foreign here is preferred. I'd say just write whatever you want and whatever you're comfortable with. It's still your story after all. Unless you're writing a story set in an actual place that has an actual culture that you're not really familiar with, you're fine. | You dont need to write race into a character. You wouldn't write someone being blonde and focusing on it. Its a secondary feature, just as skin tone. Now if you plan on introducing hardships due to said skin tone, ie. Racist characters in the future, then sure. Otherwise, dont worry about it. | 1 | 20,198 | 4.806452 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbs4lqs | hbsk4vn | 1,630,909,907 | 1,630,923,199 | 10 | 149 | Race has nothing to do with it. Culture does. Frankly I don't get this obsession a lot of modern writers have with race - I guess it's a result of hyper-emphasis on race in contemporary American politics or something, since so many writers have a far-left political alignment. | As a POC, I really don't understand the need of mentioning the character's race, unless it's vital to the story. Mixed race MC's and actors used to be so common and is still quite popular in my country, (even if them being a mixed race or foreign has nothing to do with the story), because anything foreign here is preferred. I'd say just write whatever you want and whatever you're comfortable with. It's still your story after all. Unless you're writing a story set in an actual place that has an actual culture that you're not really familiar with, you're fine. | 0 | 13,292 | 14.9 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbsk4vn | hbsi0oh | 1,630,923,199 | 1,630,921,298 | 149 | 7 | As a POC, I really don't understand the need of mentioning the character's race, unless it's vital to the story. Mixed race MC's and actors used to be so common and is still quite popular in my country, (even if them being a mixed race or foreign has nothing to do with the story), because anything foreign here is preferred. I'd say just write whatever you want and whatever you're comfortable with. It's still your story after all. Unless you're writing a story set in an actual place that has an actual culture that you're not really familiar with, you're fine. | No its not. We decide how you should you write. Anything else you wanted to try for me to shoot down? /s 😂 | 1 | 1,901 | 21.285714 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbs3mlr | hbsk4vn | 1,630,909,194 | 1,630,923,199 | 7 | 149 | You don’t need to add other races if you don’t want to. There are many many books even whole genres that are still very white and they still do well. Stop listening to the culture war. | As a POC, I really don't understand the need of mentioning the character's race, unless it's vital to the story. Mixed race MC's and actors used to be so common and is still quite popular in my country, (even if them being a mixed race or foreign has nothing to do with the story), because anything foreign here is preferred. I'd say just write whatever you want and whatever you're comfortable with. It's still your story after all. Unless you're writing a story set in an actual place that has an actual culture that you're not really familiar with, you're fine. | 0 | 14,005 | 21.285714 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbruqwb | hbsk4vn | 1,630,903,294 | 1,630,923,199 | 1 | 149 | That's completely possible, you don't have to be explicit in character backstory, but if that character refers to another character, the only people I ever hear use race as a descriptor for every race are law enforcement and some types of professionals, generally most people only mention race as a descriptor when speaking of someone of a different race than their own. | As a POC, I really don't understand the need of mentioning the character's race, unless it's vital to the story. Mixed race MC's and actors used to be so common and is still quite popular in my country, (even if them being a mixed race or foreign has nothing to do with the story), because anything foreign here is preferred. I'd say just write whatever you want and whatever you're comfortable with. It's still your story after all. Unless you're writing a story set in an actual place that has an actual culture that you're not really familiar with, you're fine. | 0 | 19,905 | 149 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbrw6fq | hbru9rv | 1,630,904,184 | 1,630,903,001 | 41 | 31 | Unfortunately, leaving it open to interpretation is almost synonymous with making them white. Due to the preponderance of white characters in media, most readers will, by default envision a character as white if there is nothing to suggest otherwise. | You dont need to write race into a character. You wouldn't write someone being blonde and focusing on it. Its a secondary feature, just as skin tone. Now if you plan on introducing hardships due to said skin tone, ie. Racist characters in the future, then sure. Otherwise, dont worry about it. | 1 | 1,183 | 1.322581 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbrw6fq | hbruqwb | 1,630,904,184 | 1,630,903,294 | 41 | 1 | Unfortunately, leaving it open to interpretation is almost synonymous with making them white. Due to the preponderance of white characters in media, most readers will, by default envision a character as white if there is nothing to suggest otherwise. | That's completely possible, you don't have to be explicit in character backstory, but if that character refers to another character, the only people I ever hear use race as a descriptor for every race are law enforcement and some types of professionals, generally most people only mention race as a descriptor when speaking of someone of a different race than their own. | 1 | 890 | 41 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbsm7hw | hbru9rv | 1,630,925,003 | 1,630,903,001 | 35 | 31 | One thing I often do when writing POC characters where their race isn’t a major focal point (i.e., plot points in the novel wouldn’t be happening if they were white/racism is a major theme addressed) is to either factor in elements of their appearance when I first introduce them (“she had dark skin and forest-green box braids that fell to her waist”) or to use their names to clue the readers into the fact that they aren’t white. Not in a “Cho Chang” way (yikes) but in a real world way. Try to make it natural, mix it up a little, too. Woo-jin Park. Rachel Bakshi. Miguel Estrella. Ashley Nguyen. Etc, etc. Then just write them as you normally would. Maybe add in a few not-heavy-handed details, like a girl with box braids brushing them behind her shoulders, a character briefly speaking another language with their parent before walking out the door (and no one in the story comments on this or makes it a big deal bc it’s normal). Someone pausing to take off their shoes before entering someone else’s house while not missing a beat in the conversation (and, once again, no one makes a big deal out of it.) Try to avoid stereotypes and focus on things that would just be natural, apart of their culture (if that character was raised in the culture) and that you see every day. It leans into “Cho Chang” territory when you only have one character in your entire story with a non-white name. Say, if you don’t imply or explicitly state the race of all of your characters and they all have white names, and then suddenly there’s a Rav Patel. He’ll become the Token POC, the brownie points, and that’s not good representation. | You dont need to write race into a character. You wouldn't write someone being blonde and focusing on it. Its a secondary feature, just as skin tone. Now if you plan on introducing hardships due to said skin tone, ie. Racist characters in the future, then sure. Otherwise, dont worry about it. | 1 | 22,002 | 1.129032 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbs4lqs | hbsm7hw | 1,630,909,907 | 1,630,925,003 | 10 | 35 | Race has nothing to do with it. Culture does. Frankly I don't get this obsession a lot of modern writers have with race - I guess it's a result of hyper-emphasis on race in contemporary American politics or something, since so many writers have a far-left political alignment. | One thing I often do when writing POC characters where their race isn’t a major focal point (i.e., plot points in the novel wouldn’t be happening if they were white/racism is a major theme addressed) is to either factor in elements of their appearance when I first introduce them (“she had dark skin and forest-green box braids that fell to her waist”) or to use their names to clue the readers into the fact that they aren’t white. Not in a “Cho Chang” way (yikes) but in a real world way. Try to make it natural, mix it up a little, too. Woo-jin Park. Rachel Bakshi. Miguel Estrella. Ashley Nguyen. Etc, etc. Then just write them as you normally would. Maybe add in a few not-heavy-handed details, like a girl with box braids brushing them behind her shoulders, a character briefly speaking another language with their parent before walking out the door (and no one in the story comments on this or makes it a big deal bc it’s normal). Someone pausing to take off their shoes before entering someone else’s house while not missing a beat in the conversation (and, once again, no one makes a big deal out of it.) Try to avoid stereotypes and focus on things that would just be natural, apart of their culture (if that character was raised in the culture) and that you see every day. It leans into “Cho Chang” territory when you only have one character in your entire story with a non-white name. Say, if you don’t imply or explicitly state the race of all of your characters and they all have white names, and then suddenly there’s a Rav Patel. He’ll become the Token POC, the brownie points, and that’s not good representation. | 0 | 15,096 | 3.5 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbsm7hw | hbsi0oh | 1,630,925,003 | 1,630,921,298 | 35 | 7 | One thing I often do when writing POC characters where their race isn’t a major focal point (i.e., plot points in the novel wouldn’t be happening if they were white/racism is a major theme addressed) is to either factor in elements of their appearance when I first introduce them (“she had dark skin and forest-green box braids that fell to her waist”) or to use their names to clue the readers into the fact that they aren’t white. Not in a “Cho Chang” way (yikes) but in a real world way. Try to make it natural, mix it up a little, too. Woo-jin Park. Rachel Bakshi. Miguel Estrella. Ashley Nguyen. Etc, etc. Then just write them as you normally would. Maybe add in a few not-heavy-handed details, like a girl with box braids brushing them behind her shoulders, a character briefly speaking another language with their parent before walking out the door (and no one in the story comments on this or makes it a big deal bc it’s normal). Someone pausing to take off their shoes before entering someone else’s house while not missing a beat in the conversation (and, once again, no one makes a big deal out of it.) Try to avoid stereotypes and focus on things that would just be natural, apart of their culture (if that character was raised in the culture) and that you see every day. It leans into “Cho Chang” territory when you only have one character in your entire story with a non-white name. Say, if you don’t imply or explicitly state the race of all of your characters and they all have white names, and then suddenly there’s a Rav Patel. He’ll become the Token POC, the brownie points, and that’s not good representation. | No its not. We decide how you should you write. Anything else you wanted to try for me to shoot down? /s 😂 | 1 | 3,705 | 5 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbs3mlr | hbsm7hw | 1,630,909,194 | 1,630,925,003 | 7 | 35 | You don’t need to add other races if you don’t want to. There are many many books even whole genres that are still very white and they still do well. Stop listening to the culture war. | One thing I often do when writing POC characters where their race isn’t a major focal point (i.e., plot points in the novel wouldn’t be happening if they were white/racism is a major theme addressed) is to either factor in elements of their appearance when I first introduce them (“she had dark skin and forest-green box braids that fell to her waist”) or to use their names to clue the readers into the fact that they aren’t white. Not in a “Cho Chang” way (yikes) but in a real world way. Try to make it natural, mix it up a little, too. Woo-jin Park. Rachel Bakshi. Miguel Estrella. Ashley Nguyen. Etc, etc. Then just write them as you normally would. Maybe add in a few not-heavy-handed details, like a girl with box braids brushing them behind her shoulders, a character briefly speaking another language with their parent before walking out the door (and no one in the story comments on this or makes it a big deal bc it’s normal). Someone pausing to take off their shoes before entering someone else’s house while not missing a beat in the conversation (and, once again, no one makes a big deal out of it.) Try to avoid stereotypes and focus on things that would just be natural, apart of their culture (if that character was raised in the culture) and that you see every day. It leans into “Cho Chang” territory when you only have one character in your entire story with a non-white name. Say, if you don’t imply or explicitly state the race of all of your characters and they all have white names, and then suddenly there’s a Rav Patel. He’ll become the Token POC, the brownie points, and that’s not good representation. | 0 | 15,809 | 5 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbruqwb | hbsm7hw | 1,630,903,294 | 1,630,925,003 | 1 | 35 | That's completely possible, you don't have to be explicit in character backstory, but if that character refers to another character, the only people I ever hear use race as a descriptor for every race are law enforcement and some types of professionals, generally most people only mention race as a descriptor when speaking of someone of a different race than their own. | One thing I often do when writing POC characters where their race isn’t a major focal point (i.e., plot points in the novel wouldn’t be happening if they were white/racism is a major theme addressed) is to either factor in elements of their appearance when I first introduce them (“she had dark skin and forest-green box braids that fell to her waist”) or to use their names to clue the readers into the fact that they aren’t white. Not in a “Cho Chang” way (yikes) but in a real world way. Try to make it natural, mix it up a little, too. Woo-jin Park. Rachel Bakshi. Miguel Estrella. Ashley Nguyen. Etc, etc. Then just write them as you normally would. Maybe add in a few not-heavy-handed details, like a girl with box braids brushing them behind her shoulders, a character briefly speaking another language with their parent before walking out the door (and no one in the story comments on this or makes it a big deal bc it’s normal). Someone pausing to take off their shoes before entering someone else’s house while not missing a beat in the conversation (and, once again, no one makes a big deal out of it.) Try to avoid stereotypes and focus on things that would just be natural, apart of their culture (if that character was raised in the culture) and that you see every day. It leans into “Cho Chang” territory when you only have one character in your entire story with a non-white name. Say, if you don’t imply or explicitly state the race of all of your characters and they all have white names, and then suddenly there’s a Rav Patel. He’ll become the Token POC, the brownie points, and that’s not good representation. | 0 | 21,709 | 35 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbssrag | hbs4lqs | 1,630,929,985 | 1,630,909,907 | 23 | 10 | A lot of things that one culture would consider “normal” aren’t in other cultures. For instance, I grew up in an Indian household and always ate with my hands. However one time we had a person visit and I found out it was very difficult for them to eat rice with their hands because they weren’t used to it. In hindsight that should be obvious but I really didn’t know. So if you’re a white woman you’ll have these things so it’ll imply that your character is white. Unless your story is set in a post racial world, having a race neutral character is impossible. | Race has nothing to do with it. Culture does. Frankly I don't get this obsession a lot of modern writers have with race - I guess it's a result of hyper-emphasis on race in contemporary American politics or something, since so many writers have a far-left political alignment. | 1 | 20,078 | 2.3 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbssrag | hbsqh7w | 1,630,929,985 | 1,630,928,389 | 23 | 9 | A lot of things that one culture would consider “normal” aren’t in other cultures. For instance, I grew up in an Indian household and always ate with my hands. However one time we had a person visit and I found out it was very difficult for them to eat rice with their hands because they weren’t used to it. In hindsight that should be obvious but I really didn’t know. So if you’re a white woman you’ll have these things so it’ll imply that your character is white. Unless your story is set in a post racial world, having a race neutral character is impossible. | I’m a Black male and it is ALWAYS good to have a diverse cast of characters in ANY story. Black people exist without hardships, make sure your diverse cast aren’t stereotypes. All of my characters tend to be people of color, mostly black women who are lesbians. Someone’s identity is usually ALWAYS special to them, either be race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, ect. One of my “white” characters, is a proud Armenian woman who survived the genocide and has joined the Soviet military during WWII. It’s your story, you can make ethnicity a huge point of your character, say grandpa is super into being Irish and your “white” character is visiting him for Saint Patrick’s Day, or your “white” character is going to PRIDE this year because this is their first year of coming out as Bisexual, or they’re really big into Women’s Rights. We all have passions and things we want to fight for, it’s okay if that’s your identity, I write as if I’m my characters and I want to see life as they see it. Diversity is fun in writing, I enjoy researching ethnic names, and clothing and foods that my characters would eat, why not add it to every story? My black lesbian has a girlfriend who is Korean so I had to look up Korean girl names and that was personally so much fun… | 1 | 1,596 | 2.555556 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbsi0oh | hbssrag | 1,630,921,298 | 1,630,929,985 | 7 | 23 | No its not. We decide how you should you write. Anything else you wanted to try for me to shoot down? /s 😂 | A lot of things that one culture would consider “normal” aren’t in other cultures. For instance, I grew up in an Indian household and always ate with my hands. However one time we had a person visit and I found out it was very difficult for them to eat rice with their hands because they weren’t used to it. In hindsight that should be obvious but I really didn’t know. So if you’re a white woman you’ll have these things so it’ll imply that your character is white. Unless your story is set in a post racial world, having a race neutral character is impossible. | 0 | 8,687 | 3.285714 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbssrag | hbs3mlr | 1,630,929,985 | 1,630,909,194 | 23 | 7 | A lot of things that one culture would consider “normal” aren’t in other cultures. For instance, I grew up in an Indian household and always ate with my hands. However one time we had a person visit and I found out it was very difficult for them to eat rice with their hands because they weren’t used to it. In hindsight that should be obvious but I really didn’t know. So if you’re a white woman you’ll have these things so it’ll imply that your character is white. Unless your story is set in a post racial world, having a race neutral character is impossible. | You don’t need to add other races if you don’t want to. There are many many books even whole genres that are still very white and they still do well. Stop listening to the culture war. | 1 | 20,791 | 3.285714 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbruqwb | hbssrag | 1,630,903,294 | 1,630,929,985 | 1 | 23 | That's completely possible, you don't have to be explicit in character backstory, but if that character refers to another character, the only people I ever hear use race as a descriptor for every race are law enforcement and some types of professionals, generally most people only mention race as a descriptor when speaking of someone of a different race than their own. | A lot of things that one culture would consider “normal” aren’t in other cultures. For instance, I grew up in an Indian household and always ate with my hands. However one time we had a person visit and I found out it was very difficult for them to eat rice with their hands because they weren’t used to it. In hindsight that should be obvious but I really didn’t know. So if you’re a white woman you’ll have these things so it’ll imply that your character is white. Unless your story is set in a post racial world, having a race neutral character is impossible. | 0 | 26,691 | 23 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbs3mlr | hbs4lqs | 1,630,909,194 | 1,630,909,907 | 7 | 10 | You don’t need to add other races if you don’t want to. There are many many books even whole genres that are still very white and they still do well. Stop listening to the culture war. | Race has nothing to do with it. Culture does. Frankly I don't get this obsession a lot of modern writers have with race - I guess it's a result of hyper-emphasis on race in contemporary American politics or something, since so many writers have a far-left political alignment. | 0 | 713 | 1.428571 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbs4lqs | hbruqwb | 1,630,909,907 | 1,630,903,294 | 10 | 1 | Race has nothing to do with it. Culture does. Frankly I don't get this obsession a lot of modern writers have with race - I guess it's a result of hyper-emphasis on race in contemporary American politics or something, since so many writers have a far-left political alignment. | That's completely possible, you don't have to be explicit in character backstory, but if that character refers to another character, the only people I ever hear use race as a descriptor for every race are law enforcement and some types of professionals, generally most people only mention race as a descriptor when speaking of someone of a different race than their own. | 1 | 6,613 | 10 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbsqh7w | hbsi0oh | 1,630,928,389 | 1,630,921,298 | 9 | 7 | I’m a Black male and it is ALWAYS good to have a diverse cast of characters in ANY story. Black people exist without hardships, make sure your diverse cast aren’t stereotypes. All of my characters tend to be people of color, mostly black women who are lesbians. Someone’s identity is usually ALWAYS special to them, either be race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, ect. One of my “white” characters, is a proud Armenian woman who survived the genocide and has joined the Soviet military during WWII. It’s your story, you can make ethnicity a huge point of your character, say grandpa is super into being Irish and your “white” character is visiting him for Saint Patrick’s Day, or your “white” character is going to PRIDE this year because this is their first year of coming out as Bisexual, or they’re really big into Women’s Rights. We all have passions and things we want to fight for, it’s okay if that’s your identity, I write as if I’m my characters and I want to see life as they see it. Diversity is fun in writing, I enjoy researching ethnic names, and clothing and foods that my characters would eat, why not add it to every story? My black lesbian has a girlfriend who is Korean so I had to look up Korean girl names and that was personally so much fun… | No its not. We decide how you should you write. Anything else you wanted to try for me to shoot down? /s 😂 | 1 | 7,091 | 1.285714 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbsqh7w | hbs3mlr | 1,630,928,389 | 1,630,909,194 | 9 | 7 | I’m a Black male and it is ALWAYS good to have a diverse cast of characters in ANY story. Black people exist without hardships, make sure your diverse cast aren’t stereotypes. All of my characters tend to be people of color, mostly black women who are lesbians. Someone’s identity is usually ALWAYS special to them, either be race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, ect. One of my “white” characters, is a proud Armenian woman who survived the genocide and has joined the Soviet military during WWII. It’s your story, you can make ethnicity a huge point of your character, say grandpa is super into being Irish and your “white” character is visiting him for Saint Patrick’s Day, or your “white” character is going to PRIDE this year because this is their first year of coming out as Bisexual, or they’re really big into Women’s Rights. We all have passions and things we want to fight for, it’s okay if that’s your identity, I write as if I’m my characters and I want to see life as they see it. Diversity is fun in writing, I enjoy researching ethnic names, and clothing and foods that my characters would eat, why not add it to every story? My black lesbian has a girlfriend who is Korean so I had to look up Korean girl names and that was personally so much fun… | You don’t need to add other races if you don’t want to. There are many many books even whole genres that are still very white and they still do well. Stop listening to the culture war. | 1 | 19,195 | 1.285714 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbruqwb | hbsqh7w | 1,630,903,294 | 1,630,928,389 | 1 | 9 | That's completely possible, you don't have to be explicit in character backstory, but if that character refers to another character, the only people I ever hear use race as a descriptor for every race are law enforcement and some types of professionals, generally most people only mention race as a descriptor when speaking of someone of a different race than their own. | I’m a Black male and it is ALWAYS good to have a diverse cast of characters in ANY story. Black people exist without hardships, make sure your diverse cast aren’t stereotypes. All of my characters tend to be people of color, mostly black women who are lesbians. Someone’s identity is usually ALWAYS special to them, either be race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, ect. One of my “white” characters, is a proud Armenian woman who survived the genocide and has joined the Soviet military during WWII. It’s your story, you can make ethnicity a huge point of your character, say grandpa is super into being Irish and your “white” character is visiting him for Saint Patrick’s Day, or your “white” character is going to PRIDE this year because this is their first year of coming out as Bisexual, or they’re really big into Women’s Rights. We all have passions and things we want to fight for, it’s okay if that’s your identity, I write as if I’m my characters and I want to see life as they see it. Diversity is fun in writing, I enjoy researching ethnic names, and clothing and foods that my characters would eat, why not add it to every story? My black lesbian has a girlfriend who is Korean so I had to look up Korean girl names and that was personally so much fun… | 0 | 25,095 | 9 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbsuw8g | hbsi0oh | 1,630,931,369 | 1,630,921,298 | 8 | 7 | It's ok if it's never mentioned, but don't mention it halfway through the book when the reader already made up a mental image of the character. If I imagine someone as a white redhead but then halfway through the book it is mentioned she's a dark-haired latina, it clashes with the image I've established in my head. Do mention it when the character is introduced, if you ever mention it. It's also fine to just imply. Names already influence your mental image of a character, I would think a Mahmoud is middle eastern and a Gomez is hispanic just by the name, for example. | No its not. We decide how you should you write. Anything else you wanted to try for me to shoot down? /s 😂 | 1 | 10,071 | 1.142857 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbsi0oh | hbruqwb | 1,630,921,298 | 1,630,903,294 | 7 | 1 | No its not. We decide how you should you write. Anything else you wanted to try for me to shoot down? /s 😂 | That's completely possible, you don't have to be explicit in character backstory, but if that character refers to another character, the only people I ever hear use race as a descriptor for every race are law enforcement and some types of professionals, generally most people only mention race as a descriptor when speaking of someone of a different race than their own. | 1 | 18,004 | 7 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbsuw8g | hbs3mlr | 1,630,931,369 | 1,630,909,194 | 8 | 7 | It's ok if it's never mentioned, but don't mention it halfway through the book when the reader already made up a mental image of the character. If I imagine someone as a white redhead but then halfway through the book it is mentioned she's a dark-haired latina, it clashes with the image I've established in my head. Do mention it when the character is introduced, if you ever mention it. It's also fine to just imply. Names already influence your mental image of a character, I would think a Mahmoud is middle eastern and a Gomez is hispanic just by the name, for example. | You don’t need to add other races if you don’t want to. There are many many books even whole genres that are still very white and they still do well. Stop listening to the culture war. | 1 | 22,175 | 1.142857 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbsuw8g | hbruqwb | 1,630,931,369 | 1,630,903,294 | 8 | 1 | It's ok if it's never mentioned, but don't mention it halfway through the book when the reader already made up a mental image of the character. If I imagine someone as a white redhead but then halfway through the book it is mentioned she's a dark-haired latina, it clashes with the image I've established in my head. Do mention it when the character is introduced, if you ever mention it. It's also fine to just imply. Names already influence your mental image of a character, I would think a Mahmoud is middle eastern and a Gomez is hispanic just by the name, for example. | That's completely possible, you don't have to be explicit in character backstory, but if that character refers to another character, the only people I ever hear use race as a descriptor for every race are law enforcement and some types of professionals, generally most people only mention race as a descriptor when speaking of someone of a different race than their own. | 1 | 28,075 | 8 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbsuw8g | hbssxgo | 1,630,931,369 | 1,630,930,102 | 8 | 2 | It's ok if it's never mentioned, but don't mention it halfway through the book when the reader already made up a mental image of the character. If I imagine someone as a white redhead but then halfway through the book it is mentioned she's a dark-haired latina, it clashes with the image I've established in my head. Do mention it when the character is introduced, if you ever mention it. It's also fine to just imply. Names already influence your mental image of a character, I would think a Mahmoud is middle eastern and a Gomez is hispanic just by the name, for example. | If you want advice on how to write POCs I’m happy to accept a DM | 1 | 1,267 | 4 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbs3mlr | hbruqwb | 1,630,909,194 | 1,630,903,294 | 7 | 1 | You don’t need to add other races if you don’t want to. There are many many books even whole genres that are still very white and they still do well. Stop listening to the culture war. | That's completely possible, you don't have to be explicit in character backstory, but if that character refers to another character, the only people I ever hear use race as a descriptor for every race are law enforcement and some types of professionals, generally most people only mention race as a descriptor when speaking of someone of a different race than their own. | 1 | 5,900 | 7 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbssxgo | hbruqwb | 1,630,930,102 | 1,630,903,294 | 2 | 1 | If you want advice on how to write POCs I’m happy to accept a DM | That's completely possible, you don't have to be explicit in character backstory, but if that character refers to another character, the only people I ever hear use race as a descriptor for every race are law enforcement and some types of professionals, generally most people only mention race as a descriptor when speaking of someone of a different race than their own. | 1 | 26,808 | 2 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbt1aqv | hbruqwb | 1,630,934,964 | 1,630,903,294 | 2 | 1 | I say no, because while a character's race shouldn't be a defining trait about them, not clarifying it becomes disrespectful to those who one might call "POC," so as white people writing POC and just lumping blacks, asians, hispanics, etc all into one vague pile is very unrealistic since in real life all those people and cultures have pretty well-defined lines between each other. Plus, to me writing the specific white people versus the vague POC seems to automatically create a "us versus them" situation that could just be avoided if you say "well this person is black but this other person is hispanic" as opposed to saying they're all nonspecific POC. You keep asking about the reader's assumptions in your other comments, so I'll just say this: if you don't clarify the race of a character and instead just call them "POC" or "not white" I will just assume they are biracial and don't like to be defined by just one half of their racial identity. | That's completely possible, you don't have to be explicit in character backstory, but if that character refers to another character, the only people I ever hear use race as a descriptor for every race are law enforcement and some types of professionals, generally most people only mention race as a descriptor when speaking of someone of a different race than their own. | 1 | 31,670 | 2 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbtfie4 | hbruqwb | 1,630,941,693 | 1,630,903,294 | 2 | 1 | as a POC we literally don’t give a shit ab representation most of the time in books cause like?? what am i gonna do w it lmao. so u don’t need to force urself to write it just for the representation | That's completely possible, you don't have to be explicit in character backstory, but if that character refers to another character, the only people I ever hear use race as a descriptor for every race are law enforcement and some types of professionals, generally most people only mention race as a descriptor when speaking of someone of a different race than their own. | 1 | 38,399 | 2 | ||
pis8dg | writing_train | 0.91 | Is it okay to leave the race of a character open to interpretation? Hello fellow writers, I've just gotten back into writing after several years. Through those years, I've seen the cultural climate change, and now I feel like have to include multiple different races in my stories. (I'm not against this at all, it's just not something I ever did or thought about when writing, though that may have been because I was younger and not as sensitive to people not myself.) However, I'm a white American female and have no idea how to write non-white characters. (I also live in a very, very small town. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a grand total of three non-white people in my town, all of which are young children. I'm not going to ask them how race has defined their experiences.) I'm not even sure how to approach the question. So, what if I left my characters open to the reader's interpretation? Is that even possible? | hbruqwb | hbv7sxg | 1,630,903,294 | 1,630,970,509 | 1 | 2 | That's completely possible, you don't have to be explicit in character backstory, but if that character refers to another character, the only people I ever hear use race as a descriptor for every race are law enforcement and some types of professionals, generally most people only mention race as a descriptor when speaking of someone of a different race than their own. | Doesn't really matter what the race of the character is. | 0 | 67,215 | 2 | ||
w5h3lf | writing_train | 1 | Is it more professional to use my .edu or .gmail email to submit writing? I hope this doesn’t sound too sound trivial, but been thinking about this a lot. I’m a literature graduate student at a well-regarded University who also writes poetry and stories, and don’t know if it’s more amateur to submit my writing to journals, magazine, etc with my university or personal email. | ih7xbwh | ih7x2us | 1,658,513,448 | 1,658,513,350 | 23 | 9 | Long-term it's probably a better idea to use your personal gmail address. | Use your Gmail. You don't know how long you'll have access to your .edu Most places take subs via submittable and you'd be better off attaching that to an email you can use forever If you are trying to bank off the well regard of your program, just mention you attend it in your cover letter | 1 | 98 | 2.555556 | ||
w5h3lf | writing_train | 1 | Is it more professional to use my .edu or .gmail email to submit writing? I hope this doesn’t sound too sound trivial, but been thinking about this a lot. I’m a literature graduate student at a well-regarded University who also writes poetry and stories, and don’t know if it’s more amateur to submit my writing to journals, magazine, etc with my university or personal email. | ih7wxsy | ih7xbwh | 1,658,513,295 | 1,658,513,448 | 1 | 23 | Is your .edu university email going to be cancelled eventually? I know mine did a year after I graduated. If that’s a risk, consider using the gmail account for any contact that might occur in the future or for holding on to the archived emails. | Long-term it's probably a better idea to use your personal gmail address. | 0 | 153 | 23 | ||
w5h3lf | writing_train | 1 | Is it more professional to use my .edu or .gmail email to submit writing? I hope this doesn’t sound too sound trivial, but been thinking about this a lot. I’m a literature graduate student at a well-regarded University who also writes poetry and stories, and don’t know if it’s more amateur to submit my writing to journals, magazine, etc with my university or personal email. | ih7wxsy | ih7x2us | 1,658,513,295 | 1,658,513,350 | 1 | 9 | Is your .edu university email going to be cancelled eventually? I know mine did a year after I graduated. If that’s a risk, consider using the gmail account for any contact that might occur in the future or for holding on to the archived emails. | Use your Gmail. You don't know how long you'll have access to your .edu Most places take subs via submittable and you'd be better off attaching that to an email you can use forever If you are trying to bank off the well regard of your program, just mention you attend it in your cover letter | 0 | 55 | 9 | ||
w5h3lf | writing_train | 1 | Is it more professional to use my .edu or .gmail email to submit writing? I hope this doesn’t sound too sound trivial, but been thinking about this a lot. I’m a literature graduate student at a well-regarded University who also writes poetry and stories, and don’t know if it’s more amateur to submit my writing to journals, magazine, etc with my university or personal email. | ih8igi7 | ih7wxsy | 1,658,521,760 | 1,658,513,295 | 7 | 1 | NEVER EVER use your company or university email addresses. ALWAYS use your personal address. | Is your .edu university email going to be cancelled eventually? I know mine did a year after I graduated. If that’s a risk, consider using the gmail account for any contact that might occur in the future or for holding on to the archived emails. | 1 | 8,465 | 7 | ||
w5h3lf | writing_train | 1 | Is it more professional to use my .edu or .gmail email to submit writing? I hope this doesn’t sound too sound trivial, but been thinking about this a lot. I’m a literature graduate student at a well-regarded University who also writes poetry and stories, and don’t know if it’s more amateur to submit my writing to journals, magazine, etc with my university or personal email. | ih8igi7 | ih85pxb | 1,658,521,760 | 1,658,516,730 | 7 | 1 | NEVER EVER use your company or university email addresses. ALWAYS use your personal address. | It doesn't matter. I use Gmail and nobody seems to care. | 1 | 5,030 | 7 | ||
w5h3lf | writing_train | 1 | Is it more professional to use my .edu or .gmail email to submit writing? I hope this doesn’t sound too sound trivial, but been thinking about this a lot. I’m a literature graduate student at a well-regarded University who also writes poetry and stories, and don’t know if it’s more amateur to submit my writing to journals, magazine, etc with my university or personal email. | ih7wxsy | ihaawo3 | 1,658,513,295 | 1,658,551,591 | 1 | 2 | Is your .edu university email going to be cancelled eventually? I know mine did a year after I graduated. If that’s a risk, consider using the gmail account for any contact that might occur in the future or for holding on to the archived emails. | Gmail is fine. When I read slush, the email is the least important thing to me. | 0 | 38,296 | 2 | ||
w5h3lf | writing_train | 1 | Is it more professional to use my .edu or .gmail email to submit writing? I hope this doesn’t sound too sound trivial, but been thinking about this a lot. I’m a literature graduate student at a well-regarded University who also writes poetry and stories, and don’t know if it’s more amateur to submit my writing to journals, magazine, etc with my university or personal email. | ihaawo3 | ih85pxb | 1,658,551,591 | 1,658,516,730 | 2 | 1 | Gmail is fine. When I read slush, the email is the least important thing to me. | It doesn't matter. I use Gmail and nobody seems to care. | 1 | 34,861 | 2 | ||
w5h3lf | writing_train | 1 | Is it more professional to use my .edu or .gmail email to submit writing? I hope this doesn’t sound too sound trivial, but been thinking about this a lot. I’m a literature graduate student at a well-regarded University who also writes poetry and stories, and don’t know if it’s more amateur to submit my writing to journals, magazine, etc with my university or personal email. | iha33gz | ihaawo3 | 1,658,547,233 | 1,658,551,591 | 1 | 2 | I'd use gmail, as you have much more control over it than your .edu address. | Gmail is fine. When I read slush, the email is the least important thing to me. | 0 | 4,358 | 2 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i38h2c6 | i38hpwi | 1,649,001,002 | 1,649,001,278 | 5 | 613 | Everyone has an accent, so what do you mean? | Never go all in. It’s a pain in the ass to read. Pick a few stylistic accents to lean on, and focus on the rhythm, word choice, and pacing of the dialogue, but leave the rest unaccented. Listening to audio of people speaking with the accent can help you nail that down. For example, showing someone speaking Scots English, you could use Scots contractions, like “canna” instead of “can’t”, using “Aye” instead of “Yes”, etc. But you wouldn’t want to go all in with something like “It wiz pure hoachin up eh toon eh day.” writing for an American audience for example. | 0 | 276 | 122.6 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i38i6cz | i38jgu3 | 1,649,001,470 | 1,649,002,009 | 21 | 130 | Don't. It's annoying and most of the time entirely unnecessary. | "Hey, what's up?" he said in an American accent. "What's the craic?" he said in a thick Irish accent. "All right, mate?" he said, sounding like he'd flown in straight from London... etc. etc. Use syntax and slang inside the dialogue and mention the accent in the beat. Don't try to write out phonetics. | 0 | 539 | 6.190476 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i38h2c6 | i38jgu3 | 1,649,001,002 | 1,649,002,009 | 5 | 130 | Everyone has an accent, so what do you mean? | "Hey, what's up?" he said in an American accent. "What's the craic?" he said in a thick Irish accent. "All right, mate?" he said, sounding like he'd flown in straight from London... etc. etc. Use syntax and slang inside the dialogue and mention the accent in the beat. Don't try to write out phonetics. | 0 | 1,007 | 26 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i38k3tn | i38i6cz | 1,649,002,279 | 1,649,001,470 | 79 | 21 | Don’t portray it phonetically; it’s a pain for the reader and can easily cross over into being ridiculous or even offensive. Word choice is the best way to portray accents. | Don't. It's annoying and most of the time entirely unnecessary. | 1 | 809 | 3.761905 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i38k3tn | i38h2c6 | 1,649,002,279 | 1,649,001,002 | 79 | 5 | Don’t portray it phonetically; it’s a pain for the reader and can easily cross over into being ridiculous or even offensive. Word choice is the best way to portray accents. | Everyone has an accent, so what do you mean? | 1 | 1,277 | 15.8 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i38t6v4 | i39hb2c | 1,649,006,041 | 1,649,015,928 | 21 | 49 | When Irvine Welsh does it, it works. When Faulkner does it, it works. Mark Twain? Works. For ninety percent of writers, it doesn't work. When you get as good as any of those three authors, feel free to start using all of the accents you want. | It can be overwhelming to read it. But establishing that a character has an accent is fine! In fact, there was a Stephen King moment that I really liked and tend to copy (can’t remember which book) where it was basically, *”Dialogue,” he said, but with his accent it came out more like, “dialogue written out in phonetic accent.”* From then on, I read every word in that accent despite it being written without it. If that makes sense | 0 | 9,887 | 2.333333 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i39hb2c | i38i6cz | 1,649,015,928 | 1,649,001,470 | 49 | 21 | It can be overwhelming to read it. But establishing that a character has an accent is fine! In fact, there was a Stephen King moment that I really liked and tend to copy (can’t remember which book) where it was basically, *”Dialogue,” he said, but with his accent it came out more like, “dialogue written out in phonetic accent.”* From then on, I read every word in that accent despite it being written without it. If that makes sense | Don't. It's annoying and most of the time entirely unnecessary. | 1 | 14,458 | 2.333333 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i38mhuc | i39hb2c | 1,649,003,270 | 1,649,015,928 | 12 | 49 | Unless it is a specific characterization (i.e. the French policeman with the thick accent) I wouldn't do it. And then only inflect on specific words with some phonetic spelling to demonstrate the accent. Like the movie Inception, you want to plant the idea of an accent in the reader's mind, not buy into yourself. | It can be overwhelming to read it. But establishing that a character has an accent is fine! In fact, there was a Stephen King moment that I really liked and tend to copy (can’t remember which book) where it was basically, *”Dialogue,” he said, but with his accent it came out more like, “dialogue written out in phonetic accent.”* From then on, I read every word in that accent despite it being written without it. If that makes sense | 0 | 12,658 | 4.083333 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i39hb2c | i39b4tl | 1,649,015,928 | 1,649,013,409 | 49 | 10 | It can be overwhelming to read it. But establishing that a character has an accent is fine! In fact, there was a Stephen King moment that I really liked and tend to copy (can’t remember which book) where it was basically, *”Dialogue,” he said, but with his accent it came out more like, “dialogue written out in phonetic accent.”* From then on, I read every word in that accent despite it being written without it. If that makes sense | Lightly. Differences in syntax and construction, more than phonetic mimic. | 1 | 2,519 | 4.9 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i39hb2c | i38h2c6 | 1,649,015,928 | 1,649,001,002 | 49 | 5 | It can be overwhelming to read it. But establishing that a character has an accent is fine! In fact, there was a Stephen King moment that I really liked and tend to copy (can’t remember which book) where it was basically, *”Dialogue,” he said, but with his accent it came out more like, “dialogue written out in phonetic accent.”* From then on, I read every word in that accent despite it being written without it. If that makes sense | Everyone has an accent, so what do you mean? | 1 | 14,926 | 9.8 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i38u8wi | i39hb2c | 1,649,006,468 | 1,649,015,928 | 3 | 49 | Minimum. Use some verbal habits and the occasional non-English word if you want to make clear how the character might sound. Go to youtube and look up the language you need an English rhythm and tone for. But, use just enough to suggest a difference for any character who speaks often, or you're going to annoy a percentage of readers. Please do not make them make dorky language mistakes. Non-speakers of a language always get those insultingly wrong. Readers, once you know the character's accent, look it up to 'hear' how they might speak. | It can be overwhelming to read it. But establishing that a character has an accent is fine! In fact, there was a Stephen King moment that I really liked and tend to copy (can’t remember which book) where it was basically, *”Dialogue,” he said, but with his accent it came out more like, “dialogue written out in phonetic accent.”* From then on, I read every word in that accent despite it being written without it. If that makes sense | 0 | 9,460 | 16.333333 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i38t6v4 | i38mhuc | 1,649,006,041 | 1,649,003,270 | 21 | 12 | When Irvine Welsh does it, it works. When Faulkner does it, it works. Mark Twain? Works. For ninety percent of writers, it doesn't work. When you get as good as any of those three authors, feel free to start using all of the accents you want. | Unless it is a specific characterization (i.e. the French policeman with the thick accent) I wouldn't do it. And then only inflect on specific words with some phonetic spelling to demonstrate the accent. Like the movie Inception, you want to plant the idea of an accent in the reader's mind, not buy into yourself. | 1 | 2,771 | 1.75 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i38t6v4 | i38h2c6 | 1,649,006,041 | 1,649,001,002 | 21 | 5 | When Irvine Welsh does it, it works. When Faulkner does it, it works. Mark Twain? Works. For ninety percent of writers, it doesn't work. When you get as good as any of those three authors, feel free to start using all of the accents you want. | Everyone has an accent, so what do you mean? | 1 | 5,039 | 4.2 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i38i6cz | i38h2c6 | 1,649,001,470 | 1,649,001,002 | 21 | 5 | Don't. It's annoying and most of the time entirely unnecessary. | Everyone has an accent, so what do you mean? | 1 | 468 | 4.2 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i38h2c6 | i38mhuc | 1,649,001,002 | 1,649,003,270 | 5 | 12 | Everyone has an accent, so what do you mean? | Unless it is a specific characterization (i.e. the French policeman with the thick accent) I wouldn't do it. And then only inflect on specific words with some phonetic spelling to demonstrate the accent. Like the movie Inception, you want to plant the idea of an accent in the reader's mind, not buy into yourself. | 0 | 2,268 | 2.4 | ||
tvc4hu | writing_train | 0.97 | How to write accents? So, during dialogue, are you supposed to go all in with a characters accent? Do you keep it to a minimum? Or do you just not include it? | i38h2c6 | i39b4tl | 1,649,001,002 | 1,649,013,409 | 5 | 10 | Everyone has an accent, so what do you mean? | Lightly. Differences in syntax and construction, more than phonetic mimic. | 0 | 12,407 | 2 |
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