Questions tagged [discussion]
The question you're asking is designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus.
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questions
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How can we make questions look less opinion-based?
We get a lot of questions that ask "can I X?" or "is it bad if I X?". This structure can make the question seem very opinion-based right up front, and questions like this sometimes attract pure-...
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1answer
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Answers that add nothing
Recently I'm seeing answers from new users, that don't add anything to the discussion. That is, some answers have already been posted, and the new answer says only what has been said before, without ...
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1answer
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Do we need to clarify in the help center that questions about existing literary works are off topic, or adjust the close reason text?
A recent incident caused me to, among other things, look at the help center article What topics can I ask about here? in relation to the "existing literary works" close reason:
The community has ...
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Questions/day and graduation
According to this question, and this one, the main hurdle to our graduation is the number of questions per day.
I went and looked at some graduated sites, and found that not all had perfect stats ...
3
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1answer
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Is here the right place to talk about writing/storytelling tropes?
I've seen a lot of questions about tropes or general storytelling trends, like if not having a happy ending or making the villain change sides is acceptable.
I'm not writing currently, but I have a ...
4
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1answer
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What is the difference between [characters] and [character-development]?
After answering this question: Character is onscreen for three seconds
I took a look at the tags. characters and plot
I added character-development but realized I didn't know if I should delete ...
asked Jan 2 '19 at 22:41
Cyn says make Monica whole
32.1k2 gold badges10 silver badges29 bronze badges
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0answers
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2018: a year in moderation
It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land...
A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated:
We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in ...
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1answer
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Should we have a library tag?
I was looking at Library of Congress filing: "intended for children or young adults" and seeing if the tags were appropriate. Turns out we have no library tag.
Doing a search, there are ...
asked Dec 31 '18 at 18:30
Cyn says make Monica whole
32.1k2 gold badges10 silver badges29 bronze badges
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vote
1answer
40 views
How to handle "How do I get a job writing for X when I don't know how to X?" (edited)
Variant 1: I like X but I don't know how to do X. So I want to write for X instead.
(e.g. I like comics but I don't know how to draw, so I want to write for comics.)
Variant 2: Writing for X ...
3
votes
2answers
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Is asking how to describe something on topic?
Is asking how something or asking how to describe X on topic?
There are many questions like:
How a mature child would behave
How to show a crying scene
I feel like those type of questions are ...
5
votes
2answers
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"Examples of X in Fiction" questions
I've understood questions of the form "What are examples of X in existing fiction" to be off-topic for us.
Because:
By definition, they're list questions, which work really poorly on SE
They're low-...
3
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2answers
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Asking the needed questions
I would like to contribute to the general rise in average questions per day by asking a bunch of questions. I am certain I could repurpose a large number of questions that have been asked at writing ...
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4answers
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Why doesn't this other question get closed for asking what to write?
And again, I don't understand why a question that clearly asks for brainstorming help on what to write doesn't get closed.
Please explain the site rules regarding "what to write" in sufficient detail ...
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3answers
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Handling Personal Attacks
So a brand new member posted a way off-topic question and I voted to close.
https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/40615/personification-of-depression
I commented:
I'm voting to close this ...
asked Dec 10 '18 at 17:11
Cyn says make Monica whole
32.1k2 gold badges10 silver badges29 bronze badges
-1
votes
3answers
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Why doesn't this question get put on hold for asking what to write?
A recent question about Painting ritualistic murder in a "good-guy" light? is clearly a what-to-write question.
It does not ask: How do I go about, if I have a problem with motivating a ...
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1answer
125 views
Migration Path to Worldbuilding SE
Unfortunately, some aspiring writers seem to confuse doubts about writing with doubts about how to organize, create, or fix world building aspects of their story. I've come across some questions which ...
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3answers
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Shouldn't we have migrated this question?
This question got posted here a few hours ago. It's a phrasing request asking for help wording a sentence, which is off-topic here but - if I understand correctly - is on-topic on English.SE. I ...
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1answer
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Place for a Question Asking for Critique Resources
Moving a discussion from comments over to Meta, as requested. This is in reference to: Where can I post my rough drafts for peer evaluations?
SUMMARY:
A new user asked: "Where can I post my rough ...
asked Nov 14 '18 at 17:26
Cyn says make Monica whole
32.1k2 gold badges10 silver badges29 bronze badges
3
votes
1answer
28 views
Asking what to include - On topic?
I want to ask what to include in a first page text, would that be considered on topic or off topic? I noticed that asking what to write is off-topic, however I want to ask what to include, for example ...
3
votes
2answers
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Are there other "meeting places" for the community here at Writers?
I've stumbled across a comment under a question today that made me think. It mentioned meeting on discord to escape the "question-answer" format, that is unfit for ... well, a certain range of topics; ...
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2answers
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Do we need both [children] and [young-author] tags to be about young people who write?
I noticed that we have both children and young-author
children has the following tag wiki excerpt, my boldface:
Writing for children to read, or questions about children who write.
young-author ...
9
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2answers
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Should we allow visual art questions if they are about narrative storytelling or character design?
Inspired by the question: How to design characters for a comic series?
The question is broadly about both creating a character team and art technique. The OP has been directed to Arts and Craft and ...
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8answers
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NaNoWriMo 2018 - General discussion and participants
So, November is coming and another edition of NaNoWriMo is about to start.
For who doesn't know it already, NaNoWriMo is a website ( https://nanowrimo.org/ ) that proposes a writing challenge every ...
3
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1answer
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Deleting duplicate answers on a locked question
The question "What are good places to post your work where it will be read by others?" is locked "because it has historical significance, but it is not considered a good, on-topic question for this ...
asked Oct 13 '18 at 22:39
Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Monica
8061 gold badge7 silver badges13 bronze badges
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vote
1answer
35 views
POV and Grammatical Person tags
Should we turn the pov into a synonym of the grammatical-person tag? For the purposes of this site, I think they're more or less the same thing.
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2answers
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Reposting a "generalised" version of the same question
I posted this question on WSE a while back, which was more or less well-received. But it is about a very specific issue that I faced personally and I felt that the issue is a common one at heart and ...
6
votes
1answer
74 views
Can one use Writing Meta as a sandbox for Writing Beta?
I recently figured out that Writing Beta doesn't have a sandbox feature like WB does. Now, people said this was due to WB being a rather different site, therefore requiring such a feature. But still I ...
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2answers
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Elaborating on questions of the "what is X" style
I wrote earlier a q&a-style question (that is, I asked a question providing my own answer): What do we mean by "Inevitable Narratives"?
The question was downvoted (though the answer was ...
3
votes
1answer
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Character Building
I just created a new proposal on Area 51 after discussion with the Worldbuilding gang. However, when I shared it with the literature site in the chat (along with the Sci Fi and this site), I was ...
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votes
5answers
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Is the Critique rule the right rule?
Stack exchange has a strong history of answering questions like "Why is this code broken? How do I fix this? What is the best way to write this algorithm?"
It is strange to me that this is not ...
5
votes
1answer
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Can we change the "writing critique" close reason to say Writing.SE instead of Writers.SE?
Currently the custom off-topic close reason about us not accepting writing critiques says:
While questions that use your writing to illustrate a point in the question are fine, requests for writing ...
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7answers
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So long and thanks for all the fish
I think it is time for me to move on from this stack. I joined originally as an experiment, as a way of better understanding the Stack Exchange model. I feel the experiment was a success, but part of ...
3
votes
1answer
58 views
Can I ask to comment about my writing style? [duplicate]
Can I paste like a part of my writing here and ask for comments about my writing style and suggestions on how I can improve?
I am a novice and have no background in literature. This is my first novel ...
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votes
2answers
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Canonical questions in general, and mine in particular
Here, I proposed a general canonical question, because we were getting a large number of more specific variants of it. Comments and answers were all-round positive - "yeh, we should have that for this ...
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2answers
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"Is my story too similar to story X" questions
I have seen several times questions of the following format:
"This is my idea for a story, is it too similar to existing published story X?"
For example here and here.
In their core underlying ...
12
votes
1answer
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ELL vs. ELU - where to send your beginner Engish questions
A comment was recently left on a recent question; it read:
Hi, Welcome to WritingSE. This question actually belongs on EnglishSE. ell.stackexchange.com
Just a clarification:
English.SE is ...
11
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2answers
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Downvoting question because OP has accepted an answer too early?
Referencing this comment:
Is it justifiable to downvote a question if the OP has accepted an answer right away?
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1answer
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0
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1answer
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Do we have such system?
So, I'm getting downvoted by a currently unknown force.
I don't remember when it started, but there were some "serial voting reversed" notifications at my [achievements] tab. Recently my questions ...
10
votes
1answer
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Answering my own questions
I have recently gone several times through the following process: I struggle to solve some issue or other in my writing. Since this SE is so useful, I formulate my problem as a question. Having gone ...
0
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1answer
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What to do when you have to edit a question, enough to invalidate previous answers, but not enough to warrant its own question?
The title says it all, a specific example:
How to control safety nets in discovery writing
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4answers
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How to write a Writing (beta) SE question?
I want to be a productive member of this community, but my questions always end up either as closed or downvoted and forgotten.
I tried everything, even listening to your advice. When they asked me ...
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1answer
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Do upvotes to questions on Writing Meta not result in reputation?
The Help link for Writing Meta (https://writing.meta.stackexchange.com/help) actually redirects to the help page for Writing (https://writing.stackexchange.com/help), so it's not possible for me to ...
4
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1answer
57 views
Why is this site called "Writing" but still referred to as "Writers" at Area 51?
First, my apologies, as I'm not certain if this question belongs here or at Area 51 itself.
After joining this site, and contributing to it briefly, I noticed that it was still in beta. Also after ...
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0answers
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Tags "openings" and "first-line": merge / synonyms?
The tags openings and first-line seem to cover roughly the same thing. "First line" is a sub-category than "openings", but it's not like the broader tag sees so much use that it needs to be subdivided ...
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2answers
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What does the tag "titles" imply?
I found myself hovering over the "Post Your Question" button after writing a question about what my book should be titled. Now, at first, I thought this surely wasn't allowed, due to it being off-...
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2answers
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Do we need a tag for every genre?
I noticed a new tag today: dark-fantasy. Essentially, according to the description, it is for questions about books that mix fantasy and horror.
My question is why do we need a tag for every genre ...
8
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2answers
112 views
What's our stance on terminology questions?
There have been two questions today that ask about writing related terms without specifying a writing related problem:
Is there a term for a first person narrative, written specifically in the past ...
3
votes
1answer
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Link of related question links to different question?
I was on this question at Writing Stack Exchange. On the side, there is a list of the related questions. I clicked on this question("I have this story all planned out..."):
For some reason the link ...
3
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1answer
163 views
When questions get 'stolen' and the original user isn't credited
I originally had a question: How many people who participate here on writing se have become successful authors?
This question actually had two questions inside it, causing it to become classed as too ...
