Recent content by psychotick

Hi, Since we're being shameless, I can tell you there's always hope. Just finished "Freaksville" after more than a year of restarting it, rewriting it, screaming in horror at the laptop, and giving up on it! It's only 136k, but I'm guessing I wrote over a million words to get to those 136,000...

Hi, Damn, I think I feel guilty having misspelled his name after having spelled it correctly. And I wouldn't have even realized it if it wasn't for all the other posts. Apologies to Neil - and love his work. Cheers, Greg.

Hi, As far as I know it is a quote from Gaimon, taken from his work "Coraline". (I just double checked it.) Meanwhile as for Plato, his allegory of the cave clearly shows his position on whether we can actually know the truth. He says no. We can't know what's beyond the cave - and that...

Hi, I think I'd stick with that great intellectual philosopher Neil Gaiman on this: "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." There is truth in art, and it's not always three orders removed from the...

Hi, For me the thing I hate most about a lot of recent fantasy is the whole Grimdark thing. And I absolutely hate the rationale behind it - that it's just so much more real. It's not. It's just a reaction to the old theme of heroic fantasy - which is better in my view, but still comes with...

Hi Aldarion, I hear what you're saying. And so some of the original works do include attempts at nerfing the monsters. But we've still got the basic problems with growth. So maybe the strigoi are originally nerfed. But are strigoi really vampires? Granted they're what the Stoker version comes...

Hi, Slightly off topic, but in my view if you do want to stick to the source material of your critters, that makes sense to me. And I really didn't like the sparkly vampires. But I think sometimes you actually have to change original characters simply to write a story that makes sense...

Hi Ban, I'm not sure we're talking purely about story. We're talking about the interaction of the story with the audience. I'm guessing that for you being on the tall side of the equation putting yourself in the shoes of a shorter character is psychologically easier, because even as you're...

Hi, Chekhov's gun is a sort of guide to minimalist writing. Basically everything that's mentioned in a story must have some relevance to the plot. So the gun in question should only be mentioned if at some stage it's used in the plot. But back to the OP's original query. Attractiveness is...

Hi, I was thinking about this, and for my stories most of my characters are a bit all over the place. Certainly, I've had heroes with scarred faces and crippled, and villains who are impossibly beautiful (it's part of what makes them a villain). But there is one trait that's sort of connected...

Hi, Oddly I just wrote a book with a villain with a stupid oversized moustache! Though it turned out he did have a reason for sprouting it. Cheers, Greg.

Hi, So what you're looking for is either pride or known capability. So if it's pride, she looks at others and considers them inferior in a particular regard compared to her in some way because she knows she's worked harder or whatever. If it's more that she's self assured of her ability in...

Hi, Yeah, I'd say avoid head hopping at all costs - you're just going to confuse and maybe annoy the reader. So since you're doing ninety percent of the chapter with the male MC, make that a hundred percent, and show the female MC's feelings through expressions or dialogue or or the male MC's...

Hi, For me what you've produced doesn't tell me much about the book. Maybe I get that the soldier is floating, but not that it's because of magic. And the art style says children's story or else something cartoon. I don't know if that's what you were going for. I'd suggest either going through...

Hi, Don't ask me. My last cat was Tabitha - ie Tabbie the Tabby! Before her it was Spooky because she was white as a ghost. Now since I seem to have somehow adopted my sisters cats I've renamed them - Squeak - because she squeaks. And Princess - because she's a stuck up little minx! I don't...