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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1693 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 31, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Even if you’re cribbing notes off the Internet forums that incels use, you still need to craft a character that is more than just a collection of ripped quotes.

Writing personal growth and change is a big challenge for a lot of modern indie authors. Some of them, like ARX-HAN and Jordan Castro, just... don't really do it. Others try too hard, like Madeline Cash's Earth Angel (her short stories are very good). I was impressed by Juan Ecchi's Dryback and Justin Lee's A Prisoner's Cinema, in that respect, and you can also 100% write stories that don't need it, like Andrew Edwards' Crowbar, if what the characters are doing is interesting enough. Probably the hardest thing to pull off is DFW's "the hero of non-action"; I think the only book in this category I've seen do that really well is John King Spezio's Something of the Springtime.

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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