Activity for Amadeusâ€
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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A: Is time travel science fiction or fantasy? I agree with Galastel. Time Travel is usually classified as "science fiction" because, unlike fantasy, science fiction doesn't introduce magical powers or beings, everything is supposed to be within some laws of physics. Science Fiction usually does include things that are probably impossible; like F... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Showing friendship between people of different ranks - maintain formality, or drop it? I think there is a mixed use case. I think your Friend Frank can be smart enough to use formal addresses with Prince Peter if they might be overheard, and informal address when there seems no chance of that. In any actual true friendship, I should think this must be the case, otherwise (speaking as ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Using time travel without creating plot holes The easiest way to time-travel without paradoxes is the rewind universe. Think of the time-machine as a bubble that preserves your body and mind. The entire universe around this bubble reverts to 1963. When you get out, the future is gone, it hasn't happened, and from now on, the universe will evolv... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Third wheel character Porthos needs more depth. Actually, there is a psychological theory of friendship. The premise is two-fold: First, if you and I like the same kind of music, the same kind of books, the same kinds of restaurants or games or political articles, or whatever (not necessarily all at once), then by us bei... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Finding out about other countries' military day-to-day I have heard of some American military soldiers in the field keep blogs, you might search for them. Although I heard they shut that down a few years ago for soldiers in combat zones. I was raised in a military family (my father served 20 years and retired) and in the US military myself for two years... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to write characters who hate when you don't understand it? Hate is not just over-blown dislike. Hate is visceral, a wish that somebody else suffer harm, often for the harm they have actually done, in other cases for the harm the hater truly believes they have done, or will do, either to the hater, or to people the hater cares about. Hate can be addictive; i... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is it possible to narrate a novel in a faux-historical style without alienating the reader? > Is it possible to narrate a novel in a faux-historical style without alienating the reader? Presuming you mean "the majority of readers", I don't think this is possible. Most readers of fiction enjoy getting into the "zone" when reading, absorbing the story almost as if they are not reading, thei... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How do I avoid the "chosen hero" feeling? One approach is to give the chosen one a flaw that she must overcome. It is fine if she has ability. I agree with Mason Wheeler; special ability, particularly ability that demands training and attention to sustain, is not the same as being born a prince, or born with more magic than anybody else. Hav... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How do I add more details in my story? If this is a true-love-lost story, then too much imagery (especially bloody or especially realistic and repellent sickness) will ruin the romance. It is not generally done, the dying partner is typically kissable until the end; they aren't vomiting blood, burned beyond recognition and still alive, or... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Why write a book when there's a movie in my head? Screenplays are also very difficult to sell, for a first-timer. Books are quite a bit easier. Unlike a screenplay, a book is in its final form, and relatively easy to produce, big publishers can do it cheap, in the single-digit thousands, and have the contacts to get it reviewed and advertised. Scre... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Describing sex in a non-erotic fiction In general, sex is a very repetitive act, and describing the sexual action is as difficult to do as any repetitive action, like a character digging a hole for an hour, or a character searching through dozens of reference books without any result for an afternoon. For all of these repetitive acts, th... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Do I write the entire series and edit, or edit the books as I go? I will agree with Galastel, and add the following. If I were a plotter and intentionally writing a trilogy, I would provide some treatment (say 3 or 4 thousand words) of what is in the second book, and the third book. I would work on these treatments, to show the plot and arc and set in my mind what... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How do I get rid of my excess ideas? I had this problem when I began writing, but it was because of plotting. I solved it by becoming a discovery writer, inspired by Stephen King (a discovery writer I thought was great). Plotting a novel drained all the creativity out of it. I felt like everything was decided, I knew the twist, I knew ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Are fictional inventions trademarked? Read my answer to your question yesterday about copyright. The courts will look at the totality of your work. If they find the work is "substantially similar" then you infringe copyright. So if your suit is exactly the same, YES, you probably infringe; Iron Man's suit is a product of somebody else's... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Identifying and managing weak scenes during planning I'm a discovery writer (no plan!) and I seldom have this problem. I would suggest actually writing less on the plan. The issue, which discovery writing takes care of automatically, is that main characters tend to grow throughout the book. That is what happened to you, in your own "discovery" phase o... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to tell readers your story is a re-imagination of a popular story? I would suggest you read this link (with actual lawyers responding). Basically if you are not infringing on a copyright, you don't have to say anything. Your example of Romeo and Juliet is in the public domain; but for other works you MIGHT be infringing on a copyright. Here is the part of the 2nd a... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Outsourcing people to make a cover I've had very good luck with fiverr.com (yes, two r's). It is called "fiverr" because the artists are supposed to be able to do some (relatively small) thing for $5 US. I have zero financial interest in it, and I only recommend it because for me it has worked great. I've gotten over twenty pieces of... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is writing three drafts really necessary? There is no fixed number of drafts. I go through several drafts, (I've done twenty, in the past), to correct problems I know I have persistently in writing. 1) Writing off the top of my head, I tend to be repetitive. I dislike that in writing and so do most people. So I find places where I have said... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to make a grieving father less vengeful and see reason? I don't find this story credible. First, why in the world does the kid give up and kill himself after a few weeks on his own? He works at one job for a few weeks, gets fired, and kills himself? That is not plausible to me at all. Second, your father is a businessman , and he cannot comprehend an em... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: I am afraid some scenes in my novel are too graphic for some people (Trigger warning: Sexual Assault) I don't think you HAVE to give a trigger warning, but if you want to give one, give it like we do on movies or television shows, up front, before the story even starts. > This fiction contains sexual scenes some people will find disturbing. Personally, my response to the warnings about "nudity", "s... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Screenwriting Techniques: Emotional Projection In order to create emotional projection, you need to portray common experiences that every in the audience has had or can relate to. They must be able to put themselves into one of the roles on the screen, at least metaphorically or emotionally. Most of us can relate to "two best friends fighting". ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: When looking to get your first book published, do you turn in a mostly finished manuscript or a completely finished one? You must completely finish your manuscript, and be ready for it to be published as-is. There may be some changes requested, they may fix things, but don't submit something you think needs work. Submit a completely finished story. To understand why, understand the industry. Authors are NOT in short s... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Research on an alternate history novel I think you need to do light research, unless you already know the answers. For example, suppose you thwart the assassination of JFK (Stephen King already wrote that book). We know what happened (real history) when Lyndon B. Johnson took over, but you need a plausible theory of what happens if JFK r... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: What are some conventions for creating a sense of urgency? If you want to see conventions; look to action flicks like Die Hard or Taken (or dozens of others). There is your standard ticking bomb. There is the bad guy escaping -- Willis must find a way to follow. On top of that, the bad guy has kidnapped his wife and daughter to use against him. There is t... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: In a "Gatsby" type story, how does a narrator relate what he doesn't get to see? I think this is a matter of opinion; successful stories have been written that break all kinds of writing conventions. For my part, in particular for a beginning writer, I'd recommend sticking to the convention that such stories do NOT break POV, it is Nick Carraway (or Dr. Watson), all the way. En... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Dead children in pre-modern setting I would go with characters have dead siblings; but that happens off-screen. Showing it on-screen, and in-period-realistic, might be off-putting itself. Everything you are talking about is a statistical distribution; averages, a bell-curve of sorts. Nothing says your character have to reside in the ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How do I respectfully write black characters in a 1930s Arizona setting? This is fiction, and a cartoon for kids, no less. And the point is to meet interesting people, I don't think what is "interesting" has to be about racism, oppression, or any social aspect of their lives. What is interesting should not have anything to do with the color of their skin. Perhaps it is ho... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Problems Blending Sci-fi & Traditional Fantasy? Both Magic and Science provide constraints. I think one problem with mixing magic and science fiction is that science fiction readers prefer some whiff of plausibility in however science is extended for the purpose of the story; so you run the risk of disappointing those readers by just using "magic... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is it okay to say what the character infers about other characters thoughts as fact in third person limited? This will be a matter of opinion. My opinion is no, it is not okay. I write in 3PL myself, exclusively, and everything I write is as if the MC is seeing it. You are doing nothing but saving space, and saving space is not important. I would probably write that scene as: > Alice sat up proudly, then ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Any tip on naming a star, planet, geographical features and other non-living things? In human languages, most translations of the Earth are just "the Earth", or "the World", or "the Land". Once in a while, you will find a proper name ("Gaia") of a God, or a reference to a God ("God's House"). The same is probably true of the Sun; the sun is the sun, it is just a label everyone unders... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Do hard to pronounce names break immersion? I don't think strange names break immersion; I think names that cannot be sounded out (correctly or not) break immersion. "Hermione" can be sounded out. "J'xyx'brtl" is too hard to sound out, and for me would be likely to break immersion every time I see it, because my reading system stumbles over i... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is it time to start closing up my novel? I am a discovery writer; and one that completes novels. The key here, I think, is to remember you are discovering the story. If you are in the middle of the second act, then you have discovered half of it. Also, hopefully, you have some notion of how what you have written could plausibly resolve in... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Advice on how to beat word repetition in dialogue (1) Don't use synonyms for said that describe tone or attitude. "said" is a word that disappears for readers, your worry about it is like self-consciousness: Only you care! Get over it, professionals use it constantly, just pick up any best-seller and look for yourself. (2) Often, if there are only ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Should I add racism in my book's world or have my world have no racism? I don't think you need to, and I don't include it. Racism is learned, and often by association with something not caused at all by race (like poverty, and poverty that leads to crime). Studying racism in sociology (my sister was a sociologist), there are strong indications that "racism" against any ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to write a memorial plaque? Focus on the whatever was special about the group, and make your line at the end, > They loved and were loved, and shall not be forgotten. It was a "policy" of my parents to speak often of the dead, even some that had suffered violent deaths, been murdered, died in car accidents, killed in war. It ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Writing couples with age difference This is not a problem; get over your own prejudices. I know people married for thirty years with a 13 year age gap, and with the woman older than the man. They started dating when he was 28, and she 41. I don't see the problem; this is even more common with younger women and older men; there is plen... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: What are the advantages and disadvantages of setting a story in a made up country, compared to a real one? The advantages are not losing a large proportion of your audience, and not being accused of being a racist, a liar, a hater, a bigot, an ignorant writer, etc. If you use a real country, there will be people both attached to that country, and opposed to that country. There are real facts about that c... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Story that's too depressing? You need Karmic Justice. Great Pains = Great Rewards. Readers expect suffering of heroes to be rewarded by success, and suffering of victims to be revenged. If good guys die in war, they want the war to be won by the good guys, so their deaths meant something, or made a difference. This is part of ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is it bad if I don't like the "best" books in my chosen genre? I notice the books you don't like you consider "too long", "too long for something to happen", "too boring"... Despite you saying you like characters, longer books without much happening are likely character-driven; i.e. there is less plot and more character development. There actually isn't a lot ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: What meta-properties should a character have in general? Persistence. That is the only personality trait that seems essential to a main character. They don't give up; at least not permanently. Their goals may change, they may face the inevitable and even die in the end (like in some cancer stories), but whatever they defined their problem to be; they don'... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to explain the main plot with science based concepts, without the non-sci-fi fans getting bored? You have another problem, if you solve that, you solve this. How did we figure out it was quantum computer activity that signaled them? If this is told omnisciently or from the alien POV, you have no problem: > Alien #1: "A sustained trans-universe anomaly in sector 37. Quantum computing detected.... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: First quarter friends Just have him say thanks and goodbye and wish them luck. I spent many years in my career as a consultant, everywhere I went I made friends, often for less than a year. These often began with lunches (everyone eats). I did my best when talking about my life and career to point out my stay was tempora... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Unfair Motivation for a Judge to Dislike an Accused In a modern setting, the prosecution may submit something like blogs or emails intended to prove the defendant was involved in some crime or had knowledge of it. But the judge, in reading these blogs, finds the defendant's other opinions repellent, even though legal. These could be talking about a c... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Little disjointed scenes Does he have any friends there? One solution is to push the training camp into the background. The problem sounds like you don't have enough conflict, your scenes come up short. I'd focus on some relationships, perhaps a competitive one with friends, but you can have a conversation while these thin... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to present an alien culture with different morals, without it coming across as savage? Along with Cyn's suggestion, another tool to introduce a cultural element is to present a conflict about it; somebody complaining that a death threat is being misused. Like being challenged to a duel, not because you insulted anybody or did anything wrong, but just because the more expert challenger... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is the "hero guy saves girl" trope misogynistic? This is a matter of opinion; personally I don't find it sexist. People have genders, and sexual orientations, and they have to mix. We stray into sexism when we pile up too many tropes. In your case, you avoid the trope of sexual reward for Edward's effort on two fronts; Lily is his sister, and he d... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to end a story without reaching a new status quo? Many books follow a hero that does not really change; consider detective novels going back to Sherlock Holmes. What is essential for a story to be entertaining is that the book is spent on a hero solving a difficult problem; but doing this does not have to upset the status quo, or change the hero, o... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Do authors often base their characters off of themselves? > ### Would it be out of place for me to model characters after my own experiences I believe it would be. For practical reasons. How many times can you do that without getting repetitive, and making all your characters similar? Readers will get bored. Also, "what happened to you" may seem emotional... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Could the cast of my book be more unique? We don't have enough information to determine if they are "too bland". I will answer generally. I think you are paying too much attention to physical identity and color, neither of which are generally important. What is important for a story is conflict , your characters (even if they are working t... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Incorporating new people into a critique group The only solution I see is to let her start critiquing your novels from chapter 1; as you guys critique hers. You can warn her your chapter 1 has been through a critique already; but she may have some new insight to offer you. She is another reader, after all, and a writer. (If Stephen King joined y... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |