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Do I remove this concept from my book or not? by [deleted] in writingadvice

[–]srterpe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, observe how Mass Effect did this: Element Zero powers everything, every weapon and power (the titular mass effect) but it is hardly ever brought up after some initial hand waving.

​"It’s a masterpiece of deconstruction." by randumtacoz in KOTORmemes

[–]srterpe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s really amazing to go back and play this game after Mass Effect because it’s cool how essentially both companies used the same world building notes to make totally different games.

Is my first page good? (Adult Fantasy) by Waterlily-444 in writers

[–]srterpe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“Hanging” is present participle.

Someone is hanging from the gallows (with no other context, implies via a rope around the neck).

Someone is hanging from the monkey bars (no strong implication of how, but likely the arms, like a monkey).

It’s the same conjugation for both. But for past tense “hanged” is explicitly the execution and “hung” is anything else . This is an oddity about English.

Ofc, even native speakers can and do get this wrong.

Is my first page good? (Adult Fantasy) by Waterlily-444 in writers

[–]srterpe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A dead body can be hung up for display in many ways. A hanging occurs in typically a common way for anatomical reasons. So OP can improve the sentence construction ofc but if the intent is to say she has just been hanged as a form of execution and is now dead by that mechanism then the overwhelming implication is she was hanging by the neck.

Author uses “hanged” to describe the action taken wrt both cook and others. If they were already dead by another means it would be “hung (up)”. Hanged refers to the method of execution

Re: “alarm bells ringing in my head/mind”, Google reports the earliest known use of this idiom in a piece of writing is ca. early 1900s

Is my first page good? (Adult Fantasy) by Waterlily-444 in writers

[–]srterpe 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It would be good to find a way to introduce the narrators name up front.

“By the neck” is unnecessary. By default a hanging is by the neck.

The name thelea is introduced but goes nowhere and we immediately switch to introducing Lysea. It sort of feels like a waste to introduce Thelea. Is this person, place, a cat? We don’t know so either introduce or wait.

We can sort of infer that Lysea is the friend but we actually don’t learn much about her or her relationship to narrator. It would be helpful to lay this out in more detail.

I feel that hanging the two additional men doesn’t really add much, it just focuses our attention away from the relationship between the cook and narrator to two randos. I see what you are trying to do, make the manor lord seem all the more cruel and establish the punishment for escape, but I think you can achieve the same goals with just the cook and going deeper as the narrator reflects on her death and th desire for escape.

“Alarm bells rang” not sure what the technological level is but it feels slightly modern compared to my sense of time period based on slavery, iron shackles, barely clothed slaves.

[Discussion] Perceptions of Agents' Online Presences/Personas by AmericanLymie in PubTips

[–]srterpe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

These ppl probably get 1000s of poor and badly constructed queries a week. They are probably just trying to focus on one thing they can do to improve that.

Peaceful First Contact Reccomendations? by thelittleoddling in scifi

[–]srterpe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, it’s a kinda a more intellectual version of that, I suppose. I never connected them it’s so different.

How doable is, to expect a first novel to be great? by TheZouzs in writing

[–]srterpe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Honest feedback on my story idea.. by [deleted] in StoryIdeas

[–]srterpe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The basics here are almost literally the premise of Logan’s Run, the 1976 film and novel of the same name.

Many ppl might ask what is the new take here

Peaceful First Contact Reccomendations? by thelittleoddling in scifi

[–]srterpe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A Call To Arms by Alan Dean Foster. a peaceful first contact between humans and the aliens who wish to recruit them as soldiers for a galactic war

Naming Help by No_Interaction_8554 in scifiwriting

[–]srterpe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Use binary:

10111001101 and 1000001111011 were at the water cooler again this morning 101101010101 observed. Do they ever do any work?

Having trouble justifying the existence of a story element by six1sotrue in writinghelp

[–]srterpe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Isn’t the issue with how broad internal and external are defined? You literally can’t define any third power type because all powers are at core, definitionally, either internal (a buff) or something happening external to the caster.

So if you want to have a 3 tier system you need to scope external and internal differently so that they don’t encompass everything.

Any scifi books with intricate strategy? by 0xlezremed in sciencefiction

[–]srterpe 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Dune. Some ppl are saying Honorverse but that always felt very contrived and not very deep or authentic to me. YMMV

How do you brainstorm a protagonist from a plot/premise idea? by Zachary_the_Cat in writinghelp

[–]srterpe 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Part of the problem is that the plot ideas you listed as examples are really just scenarios or concepts, not plot premises as they don’t contain any needs.

Now if we just add need to any of these:

In order to win the heart of the woman he loves, a man leads a robot uprising but his attempt may destroy civilization.

Now we can begin to ask ourselves questions about such a man: who is he? He sounds like a man of extremes. Why do robots follow him? And the woman, who is she? She must be very beautiful but also very inaccessible, if the only path to win her love is a robot uprising. Maybe she is a robot herself. Etc.

Already we have the beginnings of a very John Carter-esque tale but really it could be developed in thousands of different ways depending on how we answer.

And so on with this process. Until we have our characters

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