General Writing Advice 4 How 2 Write Anything/Anyone

Just a thread for advice on how to write well, anything

Though I do got a question

How do write multiple protagonists at the same time? Or have a team be the protagonists instead of just one guy?

SuperPulp2789 said:

Just a thread for advice on how to write well, anything

Though I do got a question

How do write multiple protagonists at the same time? Or have a team be the protagonists instead of just one guy?

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Best recommendation is to get other people to do their perspectives. As it lends a different 'voice' or way of speak.

Basically, speaking is the tricky part.

SuperPulp2789 said:

Just a thread for advice on how to write well, anything

Though I do got a question

How do write multiple protagonists at the same time? Or have a team be the protagonists instead of just one guy?

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The same way you'd write one protagonist but several times. Make sure their personalities are different and they have different and specific goals they each want to accomplish. Give each of them their own time in the light because if you don't, it just becomes ''Main Character and Friends''. Preferably, give each of them a major arc and develop them as the story goes even during someone else's arc.

For having the team be the protagonist, I would recommend ''The Chronicles of the Raven'' which is a series of fantasy books based around a team of mercenaries. Very well written, but one of the defining elements is that it's about the team, not any singular member. Indeed, it's not shy about killing off well established characters who would be protected in other works. This isn't treated lightly, but happens enough that you're never sure just who will actually live in a fight.

By the end of the series, I am pretty sure nearly all the original characters are dead or retired, but the team is still the team.

The Raven is also a good place to learn how to write characters that genuinely like each other, male characters that are bonded as close as family, and how to generally write elite groups or teams who know they're good and seem arrogant about it while also depicting the sheer work and effort that goes under the surface when you have to maintain that rep.

BronzePlaceWriter said:

The same way you'd write one protagonist but several times. Make sure their personalities are different and they have different and specific goals they each want to accomplish. Give each of them their own time in the light because if you don't, it just becomes ''Main Character and Friends''. Preferably, give each of them a major arc and develop them as the story goes even during someone else's arc.

For having the team be the protagonist, I would recommend ''The Chronicles of the Raven'' which is a series of fantasy books based around a team of mercenaries. Very well written, but one of the defining elements is that it's about the team, not any singular member. Indeed, it's not shy about killing off well established characters who would be protected in other works. This isn't treated lightly, but happens enough that you're never sure just who will actually live in a fight.

By the end of the series, I am pretty sure nearly all the original characters are dead or retired, but the team is still the team.

The Raven is also a good place to learn how to write characters that genuinely like each other, male characters that are bonded as close as family, and how to generally write elite groups or teams who know they're good and seem arrogant about it while also depicting the sheer work and effort that goes under the surface when you have to maintain that rep.

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This fic is doing what I am sort of aiming for


I can tell who's who

But I am pretty sure it's clearly not 1st Person Perspective

The writer said "I don't want to write four protagonists at once" which was why he ended up having the Guardians be the Commander, but now he technically has six protagonists because the Ghosts always accompany their Guardians

Like writing a NIER Automata fic, but gotta remember that the Androids have their Pods following them

SuperPulp2789 said:

Just a thread for advice on how to write well, anything

Though I do got a question

How do write multiple protagonists at the same time? Or have a team be the protagonists instead of just one guy?

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Smart Structure and lots of hard work.

There's no one fix method to do it IIRC, but the issue with doing it well is that it legitimately requires that you are smart about the events occuring.

Take Hunter x Hunter. It currently has 3 protagonist, 2 antagonist and 2 Anti-Hero going on simultaneously with different plots and events surrounding them. And in this case to make it work Togashi made all of the plot revolve around 1 singular keystone event. He then shows what each person is doing at a particular moment in time where relevant.

How do you guys make a fight scene with different weight classes, with the smaller guy or even lady, winning against the way bigger and muscular dude?

Specifically unarmed combat, no CHI/KI

SuperPulp2789 said:

How do you guys make a fight scene with different weight classes, with the smaller guy or even lady, winning against the way bigger and muscular dude?

Specifically unarmed combat, no CHI/KI

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How realistic are you looking for?

BronzePlaceWriter said:

How realistic are you looking for?

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Think somewhere between Karate Shokushou Minoru and Kengan Asura/Omega

Oh wait, there's already too much obvious lifelong injuries there that should have crippled them all

TBH, I don't really watch actual fights like MMA, so I don't see much of the effect of a lower weight class hitting someone of a larger one


I am thinking, just enough "realistic" so that physique is still a factor in the fight for increased damage to give and receive

SuperPulp2789 said:

I am thinking, just enough "realistic" so that physique is still a factor in the fight for increased damage to give and receive

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Then plan the fight scene around that. ask yourself how a smaller fighter make get an advantage over a larger one. Don't make it too easy, have them struggle. Explicitly bring up how a smaller fighter is at a disadvantage. use it as a point of tension. Have your smaller fighter be on the defensive, have them scramble for any edge they can get.

Have you ever seen the Indiana Jones movies? Do something like that. When Indiana Jones fights a bigger enemy, he usually gets thrown around a fair bit. He pulls a lot of tricks to try and win over them, and a lot of them don't work and end with him taking a hit and suffering for it. Maybe try to weave in something like that?

BronzePlaceWriter said:

Then plan the fight scene around that. ask yourself how a smaller fighter make get an advantage over a larger one. Don't make it too easy, have them struggle. Explicitly bring up how a smaller fighter is at a disadvantage. use it as a point of tension. Have your smaller fighter be on the defensive, have them scramble for any edge they can get.

Have you ever seen the Indiana Jones movies? Do something like that. When Indiana Jones fights a bigger enemy, he usually gets thrown around a fair bit. He pulls a lot of tricks to try and win over them, and a lot of them don't work and end with him taking a hit and suffering for it. Maybe try to weave in something like that?

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I was thinking of adding in a bit of "Wuxia-Glazing", as in sure there's skill and planning and it's a hard fight, but to an extent the smaller guy makes it look "easy"

One critique I have heard a number of times relating to Judo and Aikido is that "it's fake, they're cooperating"

SuperPulp2789 said:

I was thinking of adding in a bit of "Wuxia-Glazing", as in sure there's skill and planning and it's a hard fight, but to an extent the smaller guy makes it look "easy"

One critique I have heard a number of times relating to Judo and Aikido is that "it's fake, they're cooperating"

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That's unlike to be an issue in a writing format. People can say someone is faking if they watch it, but when they read it, they know a character isn't faking. They're more likely to feel that a given fight was just too easy and that you as the other are playing favourites. but that's why I said to make it so your character visibly struggles or gets hit a few times.

Having the smaller guy make it look easy can work too, just be careful not to overdo it and make it look like he's never going to face a challenge at all.

Huh, this thread reminded me of one I created just like this one!

Talking about multiple protagonists, I think there's a writing exercise you can do where you try to write the same thing being said by different characters, but make it sound like it's unique to that character. That will give you some practice in keeping their 'voices' distinct. It also helps to imagine characters in dialogue, like the kind that Plato wrote.

Fundamentally, you have to take the time to get into each character's worldview, recall what information they have access to (which events they witnessed, combined with past experiences), and then think of what they would do next. Because it's multiple characters, it's going to take more time than if you were writing a single character (which can be exhausting if you're doing play-by-post on a forum). But you have to do that anyways when you're writing villains and side characters, so why not do it for multiple protagonists too? Just be careful not to get lazy and start writing them so they all sound like the same personality. If you catch yourself doing that, then you need to take a break and think about it a bit before you come back and re-write it.


Talking about weight differences in a fight... if we're assuming the fighters have equal skill and neither of them can use a weapon, then it's going to be a hard sell, because of how much size and strength actually do matter. Typically the way that a smaller fighter (or a woman) offsets this disadvantage is by having a weapon, or cheating in some other way. If their skill is unequal, and the purpose of the fight is to demonstrate this, then that's another story, and you can show this by having the larger fighter make predictable attacks and fail to defend himself adequately against advanced techniques. The biggest opening for doing this is in the realm of grappling, where a trained fighter can do a bunch of things an untrained fighter would have never expected, and suddenly the untrained guy finds himself in a joint lock or being choked out or whatever.

Typically shorter fighters who face taller fighters will try to attack the legs and bring a fight to the ground as fast as possible, because on the ground longer limbs are a liability and a shorter more compact body gets an advantage. But this assumes a similar level of strength, and so if the smaller fighter is too weak, he or she may just fail in the takedown and get stomped out, or simply overpowered on the ground and pinned.

If we're talking about something like Bruce Lee facing a 250 pound biker dude, then probably Bruce is going to rely a lot on positioning--being at the right exact distance--so that he can evade his opponent's strikes and deliver maximum force with his own. Something Bruce liked to do was kick a guy just as the guy is about to close in for a punch, so he can take advantage of the reach difference between a punch and a kick to land his strike a split-second earlier than his opponent can. Aside from that, if you're the weaker fighter you generally just want to keep your distance and look for good opportunities to strike and retreat, maybe take out a knee and unbalance him, then you can come in for a more critical attack to the chin or wherever else. No matter how big a fighter is, he can always be knocked out with a strong enough punch on the chin, so it would be all about creating an opening to do that without getting pounded to paste in the attempt.

The trouble is always, if you go in and start trading blows, or you let him grab onto you, then you're probably toast. You always have to keep moving until that opening appears. And then this presents its own problem, where the fighter who is always moving is going to get exhausted quickly compared to the one who is remaining mostly still and threatening the other. So if the smaller fighter can't find that critical opening early in the fight, he's going to eventually lose.


I've written a scene in the past that I'm happy with, where I had a smaller protagonist paired against a stronger opponent (by this I mean a 6-foot 180 pound guy against a beast of the arena who was something like 6'5" 250 pounds). It was a gladiatorial fight (an execution, really: damnatio ad gladium), rather than unarmed, but some of the same ideas applied. I had the smaller guy moving around a lot more and keeping distance, making probing attacks and occasionally getting lucky and drawing blood (there was also a weapons difference, he was armed with a spear, against a murmillo gladiator). But ultimately as the fight dragged on, he ended up completely gassed while his opponent was still full of energy, toying with him. He finally he got run down and knocked on his ass. His opponent planted a foot on his chest and showed off for the crowd, and my protagonist would have been killed, except that there was a spike within reach (a whole other story about how it got there, but it was all part of the action of the scene), and so while the victorious gladiator was still cheering for the crowd, my guy picked up that spike and jammed it in the fucker's knee. Ultimate ruling was that it wasn't an official win--he was disqualified for using a weapon that wasn't part of the kit he'd brought into the fight--but the good news was that he got to stay alive and not be executed. After the fight, he earned a reputation for having a rabbit's foot up his ass, and became sort of a minor celebrity. So ultimately the smaller guy also had weaker skills, but he won by cheating, and taking advantage of good fortune.

Hmm, gotta say this Youtube channel has a lot of insights on writing (read: follow the opposite of the guy's writing advice.)

When you are writing an action and then somebody speaking should it be one line or not? Like this for example:

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Yuna took the bottle from my hands and stuck it in her bag.

"Thank you I just hope this will help. Now I suppose we should talk about your payment?"

Or

Yuna took the bottle from my hands and stuck it in her bag. "Thank you I just hope this will help. Now I suppose we should talk about your payment?"
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Note that she is the one doing both of these actions.

You should combine them, and normally you wouldn't just have the speech stand-alone, but you'd include before or after (or in the middle) something equivalent to "she said". So...

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Yuna took the bottle from my hands and stuck it in her bag. As she did so, she said to me, "Thank you, I just hope this will help. Now I suppose we should talk about your payment?"
------

The purpose of doing that is to make it clear that she's the one who said it, otherwise the reader is forced to guess. In this case it's obvious, but sometimes it can be ambiguous and you will confuse the reader. For example:

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Yuna took the bottle from my hands and stuck it in her bag.

"I just hope this will help"

I stood there smirking at her. Yuna's cheeks blushed and she looked back up at me with wide eyes.

"What will you do next?"
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In that example, who said what? Did I say both things? Did Yuna say both things? Did she say the first line or the second line?


Generally the four reasons I would break up a paragraph are:
- More than one person is saying something: Their speech should be in separate paragraphs, to avoid confusion about who said what
- The paragraph is getting too long and turning into a wall of text (ie. more than 5 lines -- this can happen if you're doing a lot of descriptive text in detail, in which case you'd want to break it up by object or facet being described)
- The thought is complete and I'm moving on to the next action or focus of attention (for example, I could pad the paragraph out by describing the bottle or how her face looked as she took it, and those things would all be part of the same thought, but then in the next paragraph there could be some interruption from a parrot in the corner of my shop suddenly screeching out, and the noise makes Yuna uneasy)
- I'm writing a song or poem and the line breaks are meant to guide the reader in the pacing of how to recite it aloud

You guys know how writing combat realistically would make it so that options for everybody become severely limited and there's no space for specialists or guys with special gear and the like

How do you write combat to be both intelligent yet flashy?

Think of how in Kengan Asura/Omega, there are guys who specialize a lot in certain fields like grappling and striking and still manage to win against guys with more generalist styles

How does that get believable?


Same with military based fiction

I don't think a team can afford to have different equipment loads lest it ruin teamwork somehow


Think of a Military SciFi LITRPG LITFPS

You got a team with different loadouts per individual

I don't think that would be good logistics wise, realistically speaking m

SuperPulp2789 said:

You guys know how writing combat realistically would make it so that options for everybody become severely limited and there's no space for specialists or guys with special gear and the like

How do you write combat to be both intelligent yet flashy?

Think of how in Kengan Asura/Omega, there are guys who specialize a lot in certain fields like grappling and striking and still manage to win against guys with more generalist styles

How does that get believable?


Same with military based fiction

I don't think a team can afford to have different equipment loads lest it ruin teamwork somehow


Think of a Military SciFi LITRPG LITFPS

You got a team with different loadouts per individual

I don't think that would be good logistics wise, realistically speaking m

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What I do is make a character sheet with important information relating to them like their personality, health/injuries, habits, skills, powers, strength/ weaknesses, and what items they have on them like cloths and weapons.

That way it's easier to write out fights and keep a handle on everything.

Obviously you don't have to do much for minor character's besides the bare basics like what cloths their wearing and what kind of weapons they have.

Unless they're important, obviously, then you write down the important details.

Then of course make another sheet for where the scene takes place, like a school or an abandon building. I simply describe the area around the characters something simple if nothing is plot relevant to the scene, like mention their being some chairs/desks or a broken window and such.

After doing all that, I then just come up with a fighting sequence by asking myself questions like who attacks first? With what? How do they attack? Do they make a witty remark? Do they use the area around them? Did they send someone flying out the window? Are they dead silent because they're too angry to speak?

And so on and so forth.

shirouM said:

What I do is make a character sheet with important information relating to them like their personality, health/injuries, habits, skills, powers, strength/ weaknesses, and what items they have on them like cloths and weapons.

That way it's easier to write out fights and keep a handle on everything.

Obviously you don't have to do much for minor character's besides the bare basics like what cloths their wearing and what kind of weapons they have.

Unless they're important, obviously, then you write down the important details.

Then of course make another sheet for where the scene takes place, like a school or an abandon building. I simply describe the area around the characters something simple if nothing is plot relevant to the scene, like mention their being some chairs/desks or a broken window and such.

After doing all that, I then just come up with a fighting sequence by asking myself questions like who attacks first? With what? How do they attack? Do they make a witty remark? Do they use the area around them? Did they send someone flying out the window? Are they dead silent because they're too angry to speak?

And so on and so forth.

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I was thinking TBH how to mix all of these military practicalities with style

As I talked about with others on the Warhammer ideas thread

If it were more like Military SciFi, they would find that unfortunately air support and artillery are King and there wouldn't be that many different melee weapons or even siege and fortress specialists

SuperPulp2789 said:

I was thinking TBH how to mix all of these military practicalities with style

As I talked about with others on the Warhammer ideas thread

If it were more like Military SciFi, they would find that unfortunately air support and artillery are King and there wouldn't be that many different melee weapons or even siege and fortress specialists

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Honestly, I would just write it so that those elements, air support, artillery dominance, etc.

Can't factor in.

Whether it's due to atmospheric conditions, jamming technology, or the nature of the terrain, the setting itself can create natural constraints that force ground-level, line-of-sight combat.

Maybe orbital and air assets are too valuable or too easy to detect and destroy, so they're rarely deployed directly. Maybe artillery tech has hit a plateau where mobility, stealth, or shields make it less decisive.

That opens the door for melee units, fortress specialists, or more stylized troop types to actually have a role. Think of it like Dune, where shields made ranged weapons ineffective, so melee came back in fashion.

The key is, write the world in such a way that it justifies the style you're going for. Style drives the fiction, practicality adapts to it, not the other way around.

Make it subtle. That doesn't have to mean it's not flashy, but the flashiness is grounded in a sort of discipline that takes a fair bit of research and careful thought. Don't just say, "This is the guy with the big gun (Gunny McShootface), and this is the martial arts guy, and this guy has a sword", but instead frame it more like, "This guy used to be an MMA fighter before he joined the unit. This other guy is the sole survivor of an ambush that massacred his unit, and he's spent the past year inventing new creative ways to kill the enemy. This third guy follows a mystical meditation practice that everyone thinks is hokey nonsense but then he keeps getting lucky far too often for it to be a coincidence... enemy guns jam, guys trip, his bullets ricochet in just the right way... it's uncanny"

How I would approach it is with this principle:

When someone is first learning a skill, he has to first discipline himself to the orthodoxy of that skill, and put his own ego aside. The master shows the apprentice how it's done, and the apprentice learns how to do it the way the master showed him. But then, once the apprentice has internalized the fundamentals and become a journeyman, he is free to start experimenting. Having mastered the fundamentals gives him the freedom to get creative with his work, and that's where you get innovations in the field and particular styles and signatures that, as a new master, he can pass on to his apprentices.

So with a team of warriors, they all must hold themselves to a certain degree of uniformity with respect to the fundamentals of combat, and even a uniformity of equipment if they are part of a standardized army. But where they can then shine is in transcending the orthodoxy to make moves that a lesser grunt would not be able to pull off. For example, in the story of the 101st Airborne when Lieutenant Speirs ran across the German field of fire without any fear to make contact with I-company on the other side of a building. No other soldier would have had the balls to do that, and because of the sheer audacity of it, the Germans didn't even shoot him.

You can have situations where maybe a guy has the barrel of his rifle grabbed when he's rounding a corner, and he quickdraws a knife to kill the guy: something a less-experienced soldier wouldn't think of doing in the heat of the moment. Or a guy is jumped from behind and pulls off a flawless jiujutsu move to throw the attacker and pin him. I'm talking about the sorts of skills that may never come up in a typical fire fight, but then there's that one unexpected situation where a character might have died if he didn't know how to pull off this crazy move without thinking.

Also remember that artillery and airstrikes and other top weapons systems may dominate open battles, but they can never fully replace the function of boots on the ground. The simple reason for this is that aircraft can't guard street corners. Artillery can't patrol roads. Tanks can't go into buildings to separate hostile combatants from civilians and look for specific targets (although drones can--drone warfare changes things somewhat). Drones notwithstanding, there's always a strategic need for placing humans with weapons in a particular location where they're going to get shot at, and you can have your story revolve around those kinds of situations.

The first layer of the defence onion is, "Don't be there". But more often that not, you have to be there, because if you're not there, a strategic objective fails. What happens when you're there is what epic war stories revolve around.