Search results

Sometimes, if you play the "unlikeable" traits of the character for comedy, you'll trigger sympathetic feelings in the reader and make them a little more likeable. This CAN backfire, though, so should be used carefully.

I would say comedy can be boiled down to: 1. Twisting expectations. This is like the character dodging an attack by falling down, either the example above or the classic slapstick stuff like slipping on a banana peel (if you need more examples, look for old episodes of a show called "Get...

The scabbard of the "ninjato" was often more useful than the blade it held - it could be used as a club, as a place to conceal stuff, as a breathing tube. I was very disappointed when AD&D added ninja in (Oriental Adventures) but gave them obscure stuff from modern stories like the ability to...

Cone Rifle with Tactical Nuclear shells. Sure you can only fire it ONCE but still.... (a little safer than a thermonuclear hand grenade but not by much)

I've found I'm more likely to do that when editing - just start re-reading, tweaking, and get lost in it (often instead of writing).

I saw a theory a few years ago in horror fiction that the trend is towards the darker side of the current governmental trends. When politicians trend to the "Left," things like zombies (loss of identity/self), body snatching aliens (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) or "faceless" killers (either...

Given that three of the last seven contests at PocketFM were to write Fantasy Novels (current one is wide open; the previous one was more specifically Romantassy, and the one before that was less open-ended than the current one, and the only one I took part in - didn't win) you MIGHT be on to...

No I said it would work LIKE the Fandom tags that list a specific fandom but instead of Fandom (Naruto) or however it appears now, it would be Shared World (OnlyHans).

Ah! Logically, that should work just like a Fanfiction tag, except you put the other author's screen name or the name of the shared world in the "blank" for the specific Fandom.

That was Western in Space (literally in several episodes). Yeah, there were pirates but more Western tropes than Pirate ones. Whore as an MC? Western. Leader from a failed rebellion? Western. The Bank Job episode? Almost a pure Western.

That would require some kind of dynamic tag instead of the general static ones.' Maybe projects like that should have their own account, with the author profile listing all involved parties and linking to their individual profiles? For example, if someone wanted to take some of the throwaway...

Pirates have ALWAYS been a thing but never a BIG thing, just a "thing" (well, romanticized pirates at least, a la Long John Silver or Jack Sparrow - or most of Errol Flynn's movies). I think hybrid fiction may be the next wave: Slice of Life with a System. Horror with Superheroes. Pirates with...

If you have an active reader base, then by all means engage them. If not, don't bother - you'll just get frustrated by the one to two votes...

Well, by that definition, I had three roleplaying game modules published - one in 1990, two in the early 2000s. Got about $400 total USD cash and about $2000 in product from the two companies involved, combined. Sounds like that kind of counts? If I can ever get the money from PocketFM (before...

AFAICt, that was a false rumor from people overreacting to not appearing on "Recent Releases" because they overloaded some variable and it just didn't count them, they assumed it was a shadow ban.

Define "Professional" - getting paid for writing at all? Then I had my debut in '90. Getting paid for more serious projects? Still waiting. Making a living? Nowhere near.

UNLESS you are translating your own work and make sure the site is aware of it before posting...

Though I've heard he did not actually say it, I like the quote allegedly from Groucho Marx: "I would never join any group that would have me as a member."

Mine does not have character levels but skills fall into multiple ranks = Novice 1-9, Apprentice 1-9, Journeyman 1-9, Expert 1-9, Master 1-9, Legend 1-9, and Deity 1+ (theoretically no upper limit). Skills at levels above Apprentice offer special "Talents" as well in some situations, and there...

Oh, sometimes I use puns. Well, maybe not SOMETIMES but too often... Such as calling a chapter about the pursuit of a spy named Wilde leading a group made up of fragmented bandit teams "The Wilde Hunt Begins" and stuff like that. Also kind of had a discussion in the chapter titles of one...