Recent content by Cursive

I don't know as much about Latin textbooks, but I used Wheelock's. It's a gigantic book but gets the job done. Perhaps if you explained what was diappointing about Cambridge I could help a bit more. I don't think there are any pitfalls. Latin is pretty straight forward, it just takes diligence...

http://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/1400/1400_Southeast.jpg This is a link to a map of Greece from around that time. The most important thing to note is that not much of it is labelled as Greece. Most of it is ottoman empire and most of the rest is Venitian. The area was always a hotbed of...

In my experience writing the start is hard because depending on the story my style needs to be adjusted. When I wrote my last iron pen entry I banged out 5,000 words in one sitting because I had a idea of what I wanted and the style was very straight forward and the diction wasn't hard, very...

I know what you mean Xaysai. In my opinion its the hardest part of writing. Its easy to string a bunch of actions together and make things happen in your story. but laying down a meaningful theme beneath all those plot elements is difficult. But i think that's where you have to start a story...

Bones and stuff like bamboo would probably make for good weapons. Polynesians used alot of club type weapons made of wood.

I don't think you need the bit explaining marriages for each class. I get that the nobles arrange marriages from the story about Ashley, and I can kinda infer that Xan is not a noble because of how he reacts and doesnt think about her possible marriage agreements. That peasants sell their...

I presume that waiting a few millennia for all the socks to become lost isn't very helpful. :) There is an impossibly complicated method of predicting the future that requires knowing and calculating every known variable in the universe. It works well for, say, an quantum particle. If for...

First off I'd like to say that I love this thread. Aesthetics is one of the more interesting departments of philosophy. It's like ethics without all the rape, and dead babies, and other needlessly grotesque examples. But also like ethics it's very hard to find ground from which to say things are...

I personally am not convinced of this argument that every word should be as efficient as possible. This is art not a business report. If an author presents a sequence of actions that all start with 'then', there's probably a reason. Repetition is tool like any other. If an author goes on a...

It might be worth it to have him able to still speak and just struggle to talk through excruciating pain. Philoctetes is one o the most powerful Greek tragedies because for certain segments of the play he is literally just screaming in pain and cursing and generally being pitiful. There is an...

In my very little experience with writing I've found that the start that you start with is not what you'll end up with. The reality of translating thoughts into sentences, sentences into stories, etc, is staggering. A paragraph with even a single character, a setting and an inkling of plot...

I'll say up front that I don't have a literature degree but I have received BA's in Art History, Classical language and Philosophy. I've found this broad education indispensable since I started writing. Knowing how language works is useful for obvious reasons and the art history degree exposed...

Essentially I think what you need to do is not define a religion right off the bat. It'll restrict your writing and your religion. Spend some time reading non-fiction about world religions and religion. Religion answers some important questions and in different ways. Read about theodicy, which...

I think the distinction to make is not that myth or history is better but that a person's mind is likely to side one way or the other when reading your story. I don't want to offer possible suggestions to how you should proceed with your story, but I do think you should find out where you are on...

While I'm not overly familiar with any o the previously mentioned stories my personal opinions about immortal beings is that they probably wouldn't care too much about alot of these things. I know in twilight the vampires have to pretend to be normal humans frequently and move around alot but I...