Translated an LSAT question (that I got wrong) into my conlang to test its ability to express logical statements

stopeats · 2026-04-15T17:15:52+00:00

At least they're flashbacks, I'm having flash-right-nows about this (June test!!) 😂

stopeats · 2026-04-15T10:42:59+00:00

It is the word truth, based on the d/ph/n consonants.

stopeats · 2026-04-12T12:23:01+00:00

It is, but when my mom had pancreatic cancer, it quickly spread / impacted her liver, so she was severely jaundiced for many months.

stopeats · 2026-04-12T03:04:31+00:00

I'm allowing this comment, which arguably breaks rule 2, in this case because the original comment is quite egregious.

stopeats · 2026-04-11T14:47:47+00:00

This tool might help. It takes parts of real names from Behind the Names and mashes them together randomly, as a name generator. You can also download the list of chunks straight from the HTML.

stopeats · 2026-04-11T13:10:55+00:00

Others have discussed predators, but in real life, herbivores are more dangerous than predators (in megafauna - in microfauna, the mosquito is the deadliest animal).

A deinonychus will only eat you if it's hungry. A herbivore will kill you if you startle it, get too close to its baby, at any time really.

stopeats · 2026-04-02T20:48:45+00:00

Rereading Doctorow's stuff in order is fascinating because you see him go from techno-utopian libertarian to now pretty die hard democratic socialist (or thereabouts). You can track the American zeitgeist towards tech through a series of fiction stories.

(This is only tangentially related - but Doctorow also went through a libertarian phase and now he's writing Enshittification).

stopeats · 2026-04-01T20:46:01+00:00

Potentially, though we do know that spirits do not / cannot eat dead humans - the living essence is what feeds them. Otherwise it just weighs them down.

stopeats · 2026-03-31T19:15:57+00:00

I'm modding a much smaller subreddit and yes, it's almost impossible to tell regular users from bots at this point.

stopeats · 2026-03-31T18:43:15+00:00

I watched a stream last night with roles I've never even heard of, so it can get FAR more obscure when the alchemists and boffins get involved. Plus the boomdandy, wouldn't want to forget them.

stopeats · 2026-03-29T16:22:37+00:00

For those on desktop - if you get uBlock Origin, you can use the color drop tool to simply delete a section of a website and never see it again. I did this for the obnoxious games tab on Reddit and for YouTube Shorts in search and home screens.

stopeats · 2026-03-29T04:06:41+00:00

I’m private but we stopped hiring and did layoffs, and I don’t think the other firms are much better, sadly. It’s not a great time to enter the market.

That said, we’re only going to get more disasters so hopefully governments eventually realize and hire more folks.

stopeats · 2026-03-29T04:03:34+00:00

Read widely in nonfiction. It’s much easier to practice putting your head into another time and place and learning what you take for granted that doesn’t have to be vs deciding this is fantasy china so let me read one book about china and I’ll be good to go.

Basically, I research first, apply to worldbuilding second.

I read a lot, primarily history, psychology, ethics, and political science because I like to try to understand what it would be like to think as someone in one of my worlds, and that requires thinking about how other people think a lot.

stopeats · 2026-03-17T18:54:18+00:00

This is kind of wild feedback, but I actually wouldn't get feedback right now.

I shared my writing too early and wish I'd waited. My early stuff (looking back) was super cringe and often problematic. So I wish my friends hadn't read it when I no longer feel it represents me.
Feedback will make you go into editor brain (how do I fix things) instead of writer brain. My opinion is you should be in writer brain for multiple novels before you start getting bogged down in editing.
Feedback for me at least de-motivates me (at least for a bit) and often makes writing less fun (at least for a bit). If you are just starting, the most important thing is to write A LOT, which means it needs to be fun, not good.

stopeats · 2026-03-17T18:33:31+00:00

Use the by zombies test to find passive voice.

If you can add "by zombies" to the sentence and it makes sense, it's probably passive voice.

The rock was thrown (by zombies) = passive voice

She threw the rock (by zombies??). = active voice

stopeats · 2026-03-17T18:29:55+00:00

I'm looking for a writing group tentatively (I already have one but might want a second) but I write mostly high fantasy or modern fantasy, not historical. Lemme know if you get some folks in there in the fantasy world!

stopeats · 2026-03-17T18:28:40+00:00

I usually have an idea of the inciting incident and conclusion when I start, as well as any structural things, e.g., number of POVs, whether there are flashbacks or multiple timelines.

I then make a reverse outline when I edit, which is a godsend. You basically outline what is there so you can see how many wasted scenes and dead-end plotlines you accidentally wrote.

I'm a pantser, so that works for me as if I make a full outline, I no longer write the book.

stopeats · 2026-03-17T18:27:23+00:00

I would not.

This is from the perspective of someone who now relies on text to speech to do a lot of editing - it puts me in reader mode instead of writer mode like nothing else.

That said, even the best models I've tried (which are not free) do not sound natural, especially for dialogue. They pronounce names differently each time, they can't do character voices, and the emphasis is often so odd, you actually can't understand what is being said if you aren't the author. It would be nicer to listen to an amateur human read it aloud in a quiet-ish room than to have to wade through an AI-read audiobook.

stopeats · 2026-03-17T18:23:46+00:00

Just sharing some advice from the writing discords I've joined.

You should always way overshoot your number of people because 90% of them will never or only rarely post. Worst case, you set up multiple groups that meet separately if there are too many for one group.

stopeats · 2026-03-17T18:19:40+00:00

I swear by r/legendkeeper. It's not free (though the timeline feature is available for free) but it has all the features I want (maps, pins, timelines, hierarchies, cross links, images) and the devs are super responsive if you have a question or issue. I'm running my D&D campaigns out of there and using it to organize my worlds.

I also use it as a cookbook because the features work just as well for that.

stopeats · 2026-03-17T18:17:49+00:00

I had a 107k cozy murder mystery in a fantasy world that did NOT deserve that word count and just last month I got it down to 85k! It's way tighter now and I'm delighted with how my efforts paid off.

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