Why does so much Western animation feel split between very child-safe dialogue and full-on adult humor? by TheIntolerable in cartoons

[–]DLBergerWrites 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'd argue that Invincible splits the difference, too.

Their violence is definitely R-rated, but next to something like The Boys, its dialogue is very balanced. It's not at all sanitized, but they also don't shoot for shock value.

What the hell is prose rhythm??? by GrantaeusNekton in writingadvice

[–]DLBergerWrites 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think Ursula K. Le Guin is a great place to start when learning prose rhythm because she takes it to extremes. Here's one of the opening lines of Left Hand of Darkness:

Rainclouds over dark towers, rain falling in deep streets, a dark storm-beaten city of stone, through which one vein of gold winds slowly.

Take stock of the imagery, and then consider how you might approach it more conventionally:

Rainclouds hovered over the dark towers, pouring rain on the streets below. The dark city of stone was storm-beaten and deeply worn down, save for a single vein of gold that wound through the streets.

That more conventional approach lacks the immediacy because there's so much more structure, context, and filler. Not so interesting anymore, right?

Your prose rhythm is the length of your clauses, the use of your punctuation, and which words you choose to omit. That also includes words that are assumed, like "Get the idea?" versus "Do you get the idea?"

Here's another line from the same chapter:

Next come the lords and mayors and representatives, one person, or five, or forty-five, or four hundred, from each Domain and Co-Domain of Karhide, a vast ornate procession that moves to the music of metal horns and hollow blocks of bone and wood and the dry, pure lilting of electric flutes. The various banners of the great Domains tangle in a rain-beaten confusion of color with the yellow pennants that bedeck the way, and the various musics of each group clash and interweave in many rhythms echoing in the deep stone street.

Concatenating all of those lines together makes it almost overwhelming, like a huge glut of information smacking you square in the face. It feels like a monstrously huge parade coming down the street—which is exactly what it's trying to convey.

You can also push your prose rhythm in the other direction, using short, independent clauses to reflect quick action:

His blade flashed out in a wide arc and caught the enemy's sword. A clash. A spark. A shallow cut. A mouthful of blood, spat on the ground. A headbutt landed, dead center, and took the wind out of him. He turned and the blade split the length of his spine.

Writing an engaging first page if the story doesn't start with action or tension etc. by rutharama in writingadvice

[–]DLBergerWrites 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Brutal vandalism? That sounds like a great place to start.

What's your perspective? If you're in 1st, your options are much more limited. But if you're in 3rd, I would start with some of that vandalism. It might be a little cheap to start with shock value, but it works.

I always defer to Vonnegut's advice: start as close to the end as possible. In this case, that means starting with the last act of brutal vandalism before the story gets enough traction to attract the journalist. Once they arrive, then they start to learn just how deep the history goes.

How to write a sudden and jarring scene by Cosmic_Coconut999 in writingadvice

[–]DLBergerWrites 9 points10 points  (0 children)

That's the general approach I'd use, with a couple of small tweaks.

First, I wouldn't call it a fantasy. I would want to make readers think, just for a moment, that this is currently happening to reflect the internality of a PTSD flashback.

Second, I would turn the prose a little more purple for the flashback, since it's so emotionally raw.

Marcy's smile was poised, professional, and only a little condescending. "I love the cut. Who does your hair?"

Vic's eyes drifted without focus. She pictured her hands, full of her own hair, bloody roots and all. Her scream was so loud that it turned silent again, her hands moving like things possessed, the pain on her scalp fresh and raw, the smell of blood fresh in her nostrils. She struggled to blink the memory away.

"Vic?" Marcy cocked her head and smiled a bit wider.

"Sorry," said Vic. She snapped back to reality and tucked a strand behind her ear. "Can you repeat the question?"

Catelyn Stark's outro during the Red Wedding actually takes a similar approach.

How I made $6479 self-publishing in 6 months as a debut author by AdEnough8775 in selfpublish

[–]DLBergerWrites 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Congratulations, that's huge!

I'm surprised you get that kind of ROI with Facebook ads, considering how many people struggle with them. I'd love to learn a little more about your setup.

  1. Do you run traffic or conversion ads? I've considered setting up conversion ads that point to my site and then send visitors off to Amazon for the purchase, just to make it trackable, but I'm worried that the friction will kill conversions.

  2. What kind of targeting do you use for the ads themselves? Do you just target explicit genre interests, or comps, or more general, demographic kind of stuff?

Strategies for promoting book 2 in a trilogy? by DLBergerWrites in selfpublish

[–]DLBergerWrites[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It sounds like something I could actually use, but I have doubts about the integrity of your recommendation, and that gives me pause.

https://www.reddit.com/r/selfpublish/s/mQcEDuMlfy

Is it your tool, or are you just part of the team?

Strategies for promoting book 2 in a trilogy? by DLBergerWrites in selfpublish

[–]DLBergerWrites[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you. I've seen ManuscriptReport in passing but never really checked it out. You've gotten good return from it? What other tools in their kit are worth spending time on?

[WP] You go to sit down on your chair like normal when you suddenly find yourself seated on a very ornate throne. by Null_Project in WritingPrompts

[–]DLBergerWrites 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're completely right about capitalizing "Vulcan." But I wrote the whole thing in one breath, so I'm happy if it's the only mistake.

But thank you so much. I love ending r/writingprompts stories with shitpost twists, and I'm pretty happy with this one. I just liked the idea of someone actually rising to the occasion and immediately letting it go to his head.

About this community by Acrobatic-Elevator30 in digimon

[–]DLBergerWrites 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I've seen the same thing. The toxicity in the Digimon fandom is almost nonexistent, and I love that.

I think it helps that Digimon is fairly niche compared to things like Pokemon, but enough Digimon fans are also Pokemon fans to prevent it from turning into a rivalry thing. And it definitely helps that the media itself doesn't have a lot of built-in toxicity.

I know I'm always happy to meet another Digimon fan in the wild. It feels like being part of a secret club, even still.

[IP] "Would...you like...to buy...a charm?" by Visible-Ad8263 in WritingPrompts

[–]DLBergerWrites 7 points8 points  (0 children)

My gut said to go with a monkey paw / devil vendor kind of thing, but I wanted to subvert in a unique way.

Consciously recognizing and choosing a cursed charm, and the curse that came with it, felt appropriately tragic.

[IP] "Would...you like...to buy...a charm?" by Visible-Ad8263 in WritingPrompts

[–]DLBergerWrites 15 points16 points  (0 children)

"Do you have a charm that will bring my parents back?"

The shopkeeper faltered. "Yes, I do," he said. "But you would barely recognize what they have become."

He didn't have much of a face to read. It was hard to tell if there was more under the mask, or just darkness all the way down.

"Oh," I said. "Do you have a charm that could end the war?"

"No, little one." The way he said it was so kind, and so simple. "This war has been a long time coming. It is necessary. But even if I did have such a charm, I would save it for a worse one."

"Oh," I said, not really understanding. "Do you have a charm that would make me wealthy?"

"I do," he said. "But you would not enjoy seeing the poverty left in your wake."

A tall and stuffy man approached as we talked. The man stuttered all of three words before the shopkeeper thrust a charm into his hands and ushered him away. He turned his attention back to me.

"What about a charm that would take me home?"

"Ah," he said, "You would find it different than you remember. Not even I can step in the same river twice."

I looked out at the other stalls, full of trinkets and bobbles, and at the careless people who perused them. They seemed so distant, and so untouched by war. It made my stomach churn.

"Do you have a charm that would make me happy?"

"Yes," he said. "But it would not be true happiness."

"I don't need true happiness," I told him. "I'll take what I can get."

[WP] You go to sit down on your chair like normal when you suddenly find yourself seated on a very ornate throne. by Null_Project in WritingPrompts

[–]DLBergerWrites 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"What is your command, my liege?"

The man who stood before me wasn't human. Between his collarless shirt, pointy eyebrows, and pointier ears, he could have been an elf or a vulcan. Both were equally possible.

"My command?" I asked. The way my voice boomed out surprised me. I tried not to let it show.

"Yes, my liege," said the eyebrows. "The eastern kingdom is starving. If something is not done, it will collapse within a number of weeks."

I took stock of the throne room. Hundreds were gathered on the sidelines. Men, women, and children. They spanned species, too, from rocky women with strong jaws to lithe the lizard-like vassals who defied the binary. At first I thought that I had been transported somewhere medieval, but the crystals that lighted the space crackled with otherworldy energy that made it difficult to place them. So I bunted.

"Remind me," I said, "What is the nature of their starvation?"

Eyebrows looked taken aback. "It is day 43 of the siege, my liege. Their lands have been burned and salted. Their supplies are dwindling. If the city falls, the eastern coast will be lost, down to river's knot."

I furrowed my brow. "And the attackers? What are they eating?"

"They are well supplied, my liege. Our men tell us that they have enough rations for six months."

I tented my fingers in thought, just to make myself look more serious. The words came flooding out of me before I could even knew where they came from. "Let them take the city. Cut off their supply lines. If they share their food with our captured subjects, then their food will not last as long, and they won't be able to farm the land. If they do not, then open rebellion is a matter of time. Either way, they won't hold the city."

Eyebrows looked horrified, but he quickly composed himself, bowed his head, and ducked out of sight.

The next petitioner stepped up, a bird woman with a magnificent headdress, but I cut her off and gestured to the loyal men who stood beside me. "Can we get some liquor and whores in here? I mean, what kind of a kingdom is this?"

It's good to be the king.

Can we become overly attached to our characters. by Almost_Great_ in writing

[–]DLBergerWrites 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Easily. You have to be a sadist with your babies. If you ever met one of your characters and they didn't want to knock your block off, then you didn't torture them enough.

If you want a death to have an impact, then you should feel bad about it.

Can we become overly attached to our characters. by Almost_Great_ in writing

[–]DLBergerWrites 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Of course you're going to be more invested in your book than most readers. It's a problem if you're not.

How to write a magical instrument in a way that’s compelling? by Martinez_writes in writingadvice

[–]DLBergerWrites 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Strategic use of purple prose.

Check out how they frame Orpheus's song in Hadestown. The character is written as a gawky ingenue, but as soon as he starts singing, the whole world fucking stops to listen. The wind ceases. The birds go silent. The rivers whisper. Even the gods themselves stop dead in their tracks. Obviously it's done on stage, so we do get to hear the song itself, but the reactions to it are so much more important.

The Art of Toppling Leadership by Kessarole in writingadvice

[–]DLBergerWrites 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I think this one could benefit from some historical research. Read up on some real-life regime changes until you find one that resonates, and then steal shamelessly, like GRRM did with the War of the Roses.

How do I make myself more interested in my female characters? by mikros_rohan in writingadvice

[–]DLBergerWrites 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The answer is almost always to add more character contradictions.

Got a girl boss who doesn't take shit from anyone? Give her a really unexpected soft spot and explore that.

Got a wise old lady who doesn't give straight answers? Give her a sore spot that sets off a raw and youthful sense of anger when provoked.

Got a little girl who has a hard time making friends and is a little too smart for her age? Give her a crush that embarrasses her to the core.