Amadeus‭

To me, the recognition of an actual fault is specific, I can point to exactly what is wrong and state exactly why it is wrong. While self-doubt, for me, is generally vague. e.g. What if this is lik...

posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭

The "Why" is that we want the MC (Main Character, or Main Crew) to undergo some sort of struggle in order to get from the end of the Act I to the beginning of Act III. Because that is what makes th...

posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭

I notice we have a dearth of activity on this site. With a relatively small number of active users, perhaps we can add a tab to the "Questions" Page. We have Activity, Age, Score as sorting algori...

4 answers  ·  posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 3y ago by ArtOfCode‭

The way you've set it up, with C being a trusting character, if you want the Reader to know something is up, you find a sweet spot of them saying something that most Readers would get, but C does n...

posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭

I imagine, as Lauren says, you need simple sentences, but they don't have to be boring. Xiao Li lost his trousers. He politely asked his manager if he could return home for more trousers. His man...

posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭

It's too long, and it's filled with squishy prescriptions. Yes, we won't tolerate harassment. But I think it is a mistake to try and define every possible form of harassment. Make it a law of int...

posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  edited 3y ago by Amadeus‭

I'll offer a frame challenge here. Personally, I embrace the rewrite, and the deletion. I recently finished a long novel, a year-long project, and by my count, I read the whole thing twenty times. ...

posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭

Usually "and" is indeed dispensable and the fact that you wrote it is a clue to check if it is. Using that sentence as an example, I can eliminate "and" with a semicolon, or a period. Usually "...

posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 3y ago by System‭

Stephen King, in a live interview, was asked "What advice do you have for people that want to write?" His answer (I am repeating from memory) was: "They should write. But I have to tell you, most ...

posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  edited 3y ago by Amadeus‭

I don't think reader's necessarily like characters for their names. It is true that the poetry of some names seem to imply more altruistic, or harmless, or villainous intent. Frodo Baggins just doe...

posted 4y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 3y ago by System‭

The new cultures stimulate the imagination. The problems are new, the ways of solving problems are new, what the culture allows is new. Perhaps the technology is new, or so old that we cannot use e...

posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 3y ago by System‭

I'm not giving you examples because you cannot ask "what to write" here. So these are guidelines on writing, given a character. I usually begin with a character. For me, a good character needs to ...

posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  edited 3y ago by Amadeus‭

In general, do not give a laundry list of features. The reason for this is you are asking the reader to memorize a lot of stuff that is disconnected from the story. In order to connect their featu...

posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 3y ago by System‭

In this answer, I am going to explain to you why you shouldn't announce what you are about to write anyway. It is boring and redundant and a waste of real estate on the page. Start with a claim, ...

posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 3y ago by System‭

On SE, as we write our answers the formatted text appears below it; a what-you-see-is-what-you-get image. That helps me, at least, tell if I have unclosed Bold or Italics, if my links are working,...

1 answer  ·  posted 3y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 3y ago by ArtOfCode‭