r/Writeresearch

Hello everyone,
I hope you are all doing well.

I am currently preparing for the OET exam, and I am finding the writing section quite challenging. I sometimes struggle with structuring my letters clearly, choosing appropriate formal language, and managing time effectively.

I would really appreciate any advice, tips, or strategies that have helped you improve your writing skills for OET. In particular, I would be grateful for guidance on how to organise the letter properly and avoid common mistakes.

Thank you in advance for your support.

So for this story I'm writing, MC impales the antagonist's shoulder with a spear.

However, this antagonist comes back later with a prosthetic arm and a lust for vengeance. So far my explanation is just that because of how long it took for anyone to find him, it would've been too late to try to save the arm, and it's permanently paralyzed. So he ends up just getting it amputated and replaced with this prosthetic.

Important to note that he doesn't really have access to a hospital until much later (hence the amputation and prosthetic.) and he lives in something of a forest commune. So any medical attention he could get would be very primitive and rudimentary.

Edit: also important to note that this is a superhero story taking place in modern times but with some extra technological advancements. So this antagonist has powers and can resist the infection from his injury, but not the nerve damage.

How realistic of a possibility is this? And if I want to be really specific, what part of the shoulder exactly would it have to be to result in complete arm paralysis?

I’m writing a romance novel that is slowly becoming more and more sci-fi.

The book takes place a little in the future when there are multiple models of autonomous vehicles (AVs) on the roads, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and ‘personalities.’ At the beginning of the book, we learn that there has been an uptick in crashes between competing AV models.

My current explanation for this is that the cars would have been trained on the behavior of human drivers—not other AV models—leading them to be less skilled at predicting the behavior of those other models (especially those that are newer).

But is that even realistic??? I know that when vehicle-to-vehicle communication software works properly, cars can communicate nearly instantaneously. But is it reasonable to believe that V2V communication might not be able to fully prevent these crashes?

(maybe due to the spontaneous nature of certain road conditions, lags in signal transmission, the size of the data that would be necessary to actually prevent the crash, etc.)

Ultimately, I want the messaging of this novel to be about the importance of transparency in AI. I’m just worried that the solution to the problem I’ve outlined is more technical than it is ethical. Any help is much appreciated!

In my novel, the antagonist works as a handler for a delivery company (UPS, or a fictitious one). as a sidebar in the story, he and several employees have a theft ring there they unload certain electronic packages and avoid scanning on the inventory sheet, print out address that go to them or other friends address and then either keep the product or sell them to friends. it's in the story because my antagonist will go to jail for the theft, in addition to the assault he commits against the protagonist. I don't know much about delivery, but would this be plausible? Do I need to go into details about this since this isn't a major part of the story? Also, would there be way for my protagonist to figure out something and help turn him over to the police if they are investigating?

I know this i a lot, and forgive me if I'm asking stupid questions, I am doing research, but I thought I would also reach out to this reddit group as part of my research.

Thank you so much

If your head is bashed in repeatedly and there is brainmatter everywhere. Can a pathologist tell, if something from the brain is missing? If it was drained of it's fluids entirely? Or the smashed up bloody pieces make it hard?

I've been told to ask my question here instead so I hope yall can help me.

So in my story, my (incredibly vindictive) protagonist is reminiscing about a time when, back when she was a student at the University of British Columbia, she decided to get revenge on a guy who was leading a coordinated harassment campaign against her (she knew it was him, but had no real proof). And her plan was, essentially, catfishing the guy, and eventually convincing him to try and break and enter someone's house, resulting in him getting arrested.

My question is, could someone get expelled from university for having done something like this? I tried looking through UBC's student code of conduct, but I can't anything that specifically relates to crimes committed off-campus.

So, I’m British. I’ve never stepped a foot outside of England, and I’m currently taking on a project which involves characters taking a road trip from Pittsburgh to Nebraska.

If any of you have ever driven the route (I’m pretty sure the two most common ways are Interstate 70 and Interstate 80, but I could be wrong) please tell me what it’s like! What states do you drive through, what is it like scenery/atmosphere long, how long does it take? Did you stop at any points, and if you did in what states?

Thank you!

I’m currently working on a writing project and hoping to connect with individuals who were raised in India, particularly within more traditional Hindu households/backgrounds, and who now live in the U.S. (especially the South, though not required).

A large emotional theme in the story involves grief, family dynamics, spirituality, and reincarnation, and I’m trying very hard to approach those themes with realism, nuance, and cultural respect rather than stereotypes. I’d especially love hearing about family traditions, food, language, religion/spirituality, childhood experiences, family roles, and everyday life details that feel authentic to your experience.

So my MC is a well established and powerful (Medieval-esque fantasy) Lady who becomes this huge patron to the sciences, and funds tons of research on stuff like diseases/ medical advancements. In short, war breaks out and everything goes absolutely terrible for her, to the point where she looses enough of her morals and mercy and decides biological terrorism is the last resort, but still has enough mercy to not want to let it spread into her lands and hurt innocents (wants to just unleash it in war camps and enemey keeps).

Thus my question, I would like to find a real life disease/ plauge/ whatever to reference that is:

1. Doesn't require antibiotics to be cured (they dont exists), vaccines and other treatments are great though

2. Contagious between humans/ their water/ food, or just highly contagious in general

3. Thrives in warm areas and dies off in any cold regions

4. Probably doesnt exist, but if it would primarily affect adults over children, or affect the rich over the poor, that would be a huge bonus.

5. A quick and high probability of death

Right now I am considering Smallpox (because her lands could be largely vaccinated with cowpox) or Cholera (because treatment is largely just better fluids), but I would love to hear any other reccomendations or thoughts you think I should reference/ consider!

I have an immortal character who, due to being cheeky, I want to be using the same name he was using several centuries ago with an updated spelling. Something that fits naturally into both eras. Google has failed me, mostly only providing surnames.

EDIT: I am quite justifiably getting this question a lot because I forgot to address it: he's most likely been bumming around the British Isles for all this time, so a name that's been bouncing around that region, especially English, is ideal.

I’m planning a story about a post “Kessler cascade” future. Kessler cascade is basically space debris striking other space debris, causing a knock on reaction. Preventing space travel, destroying satellites and also heating the atmosphere and making earth “almost” uninhabitable.

The story will take place a few generations after the world has stabilised.

While I’ve got some plot lines down, got some of the science down. I’m really struggling with the culture. I was thinking Stone Age meets modern age materials and also textbooks. I lean towards a science based idea as i might be able to work in science books being revered as religious texts?

I can’t figure out if they’d have a deity, would be communist or would be on a scientific merit based system.

I’m imagining about 5% of the population surviving and being placed in Britain, although I plan to only allude to it being Britain and not specifically mention this

STORY STUFF! I write horror and similar genres. I promise I have no intention of carrying this out in real life because... yowch

Anyway, can hard drugs like coke/heroin/meth/opium/etc., be used as pain relief and/or anesthetics during and after a major operation? Think something like a C-section/hysterectomy. Additionally, the drugs/substances must have been available or popular during the 1920s-50s (because historical fiction is my jam).

Let's say a female mc wants to perform surgery on herself pertaining to the female reproductive system (lol); would she be okay on just the drugs alone, albeit zooted out of her mind, but still able to perform the surgery okay? Or would she falter from the effects of the drugs?

I am thinking back to Stephen King's short story "Survivor Type" where the mc uses heroin to stabilize himself during an amputation... But that's still fiction. I'm wondering if this has ever happened in real life/would be feasible in real life?

Thanks!!!

The person loses all will to eat, move, walk and even breath, they feel like everything is a bother and might or might not feel depressed. Could these be symptomes of early stage pregnancy or some pathology?

Edit: It is a science fiction, in a futuristic setting. The character has some medical knowledge but need to check with a doctor. Problem is they do not have many modern doctors where she currently lives so she needs to go to her own world or see the military doctor (they know each other). The test says she is pregnant but she doesn't think so at first. I want to leave a few clues for the readers so it would make sense for her those symptoms to indicate pregnancy even thought they are just sort of like her body's mechanism against the alien body (a bit like a virus or cancer which was caused by a mutation and its croissance speed is getting faster). Again, the pregnancy test says she is pregnant and she has a few symptoms but the ecography shows she isn't actually pregnant (thought they still didn't know wether it was a miscarriage or if she just was never with child).

So one of the characters in my story gets defeated by getting struck by lightning, normal lightning. Specifically, the main character gets lightning attracted to his sword before throwing it at this character, who then grabs his sword only for it to get targeted by lighting and they get contact-struck by the lightning. However, this character continues to be prominent even after this and I want them to have the lighting lichtenberg figure scars for a long time or even permanently, and maybe some kind of disability that they have to work around for the rest of the story.

The problem is, from the research I did lichtenberg figure scars typically go away in a couple days and I want it lasting longer than that. Already part of the reason I can come up with for why they might last longer on this character is because they didn’t receive medical treatment until a long while after the strike and likely didn’t receive very much burn treatment even for days afterward, but I don’t know if that would actually be enough to make the scars permanent or longer lasting.

This is a low fantasy as well, so magic lightning or other things like that don’t exist in this world

So I guess my question is this: is not receiving burn treatment soon after a lightning strike enough of a reason for the scars to be long lasting, and if not then what would make them long lasting?

The character in my book is resolute and at peace with their upcoming self-inflicted demise. They have their tragic but solid reasons, and they know there's no way to be swayed from their course. Their only regret, though, is the way it'll cripple their family with grief.

They're a smart person, so they'll figure out the relatively least-bad circumstances under which to actually do it. The problem is that they're a smarter person than me, so I don't know what these circumstances might be.

Obviously no matter how they go about it, the family will be gutted. But there's got to be a way to at least soften the blow, even if slightly. Some ideas I've had:

• They plan a solo trip to a national park and "get lost". Pros: an accident would be relatively less devastating and avoid the "we could have saved them if only we'd done better!" mentality; they like hiking, so the cover story would hold up; and the method could be anything from falling off a cliff to drowning in a river to letting the elements/fauna do what they do, so even if/when their body is found, it still appears accidental. Cons: they've attempted suicide in the past, and their mental/emotional issues have been a recurring plot thread throughout the novel, so it might be fairly easy to see through.
• They could just be upfront and plainly honest about their mindset and worldview, explaining in no uncertain terms in their note that it's nobody's fault and that the decision was made with a restful heart. Pros: a "veiled confessions/goodbyes" chapter would close a lot of loose threads and resolve a lot of character arcs; it would be cleaner, more direct, and better at providing closure than faking an accident or something (wouldn't ripping off the bandaid be a good idea?). Cons: it would only very slightly minimize the family's distress, if at all. A smart character with the goal of hurting their loved ones as relatively little as possible would surely find a better way than to just full send their own death and hope that their note can provide padding against the grief.

There's also the timing. The character is melodramatic enough to wait until their own birthday to do it, for the sake of both poetic timing as well as to spare their family from having to experience the most acute grief on two days of remembrance each year (reducing it to just one instead). However, their birthday isn't for a few months from the current point in the story, and long story short I can't change that without having to completely rearrange the chronology and giving myself a huge headache. It just creates an awkward gap in time where this actively-suicidal young adult spends several months twiddling their thumbs. Maybe I could incorporate a bucket list, but that fucks with the narrative pacing even more.

On the other hand, it can't be too soon, because their sister's birthday is in just a couple of weeks from the current point (and I again can't shuffle it around without altering some key plot points in a way I really don't feel like doing) and they definitely are not the type of character to taint that event for her every year for the rest of her life. Thinking of it from their perspective, would a month or two be enough of a buffer to RELATIVELY preserve the ability for the sister to feel joy on her birthday ever again? If not, what do I have them do?

Hello there,

I’m writing a character for a larger story where the event surrounding them is also the inciting incident of the story.

The character is part of a specific subset of people in this fantasy setting with a particular gene that allows them to heal others through sap produced by their palms. In this world, the government keeps track of people born with this gene, and frequently takes them away as a young child to stay in a village where they are trained very rigorously to eventually work for the government in war.

The inciting incident is that the two MCs join a group of people who claim they plan on “saving the healers”. With the MCs wishing to do something good, they join, only to find out the group actually meant they were going to bomb the village. In the wreckage that the two MCs are now a part of, they save a young healer that was very close to one of the blasts, in an attempt to help anyone in the mess.

So, what I want to make sure of is the realism of the healer. Through my research, I concluded it’s reasonable for him to be an amputee, especially if he has burn scars on that particular side of his body. What I’m more so curious about is how to write his hearing realistically. I was initially thinking he would go completely deaf, but I think for the sake of the story I would prefer to write him that he is completely deaf initially, then regains a portion of his hearing, but as a result of learning sign language and still being partially deaf, he would have selective mutism. Would this be accurate? If so, what would the timeline be for his hearing to partially return?

Some added context is that I initially wrote the sign language aspect while actively taking sign language classes and learning about deaf culture from a deaf teacher. In the story, also, they meet a traveler with a keen ability in a variety of trades, and aids in giving the MCs a place to stay and teaching them how to accurately care for the healer.

Thank you for all the advice!! It would be really appreciated

I read online that in some adoption cases, the court has the ability to add visitation for immediate biological relatives to the final order, but it's really difficult to get that and definitely requires a firmly established relationship with the child.

If the relative didn't have an established relationship, but the adoptive family said they wanted a visitation clause for the relative in the final order, and there was no other reason (criminal record, etc.) that the relative wouldn't be allowed near the child, would the court allow it?

I have a male character in his early 40s who was going to die due to cirrhosis (he has two adult daughters, around 19 to 22 years old), and the cirrhosis is brought on by years of drinking. But in my research I'm reading that such a death wouldn't be until years later -- like maybe when he's in more advanced in age. Is it plausible to have him develop acute cirrhosis, or should I add another complication? I have it that he dies when one of his daughters (the protagonist) is around 21 years old.

I have a character with super speed whose speed comes from the fact that he can change how the flow of time affects him by slowing it down in a small pocket that fits over his entire body and a few millimeters over his skin and to anything he is holding or carrying. Or he can slow it down around himself or freeze parts of himself in time entirely for defense. Since his time is moving faster, anything from the outside looks like it is slower. His maximum increase is twelve times, which lets him sprint at around 200 miles an hour from the perspective of an outside observer and have everything on the outside of his bubble look like it is in 12 times slow motion. Would he be able to dodge bullets fired from over ten feet away and percieve the bullet moving if it looked to be going 12 times slower? Assume a modern AR or a glock 19 is the gun used, either or is fine.