Activity for Amadeus
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: How to write female characters with agency? On "Jo Writes Stuff", Jo has produced an epic analysis of whether or not a character is a "strong female character"; and a test to go with it. Here is her instructions on How To Use The Test. She has stopped any new analysis, but here is a list of All The Characters She Reviewed. I believe this can... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Ways to make money off trash? @Cyn has a good answer I will try not to repeat. Used to be, you could collect things from the trash to recycle, like aluminum cans, and sell them for $1 a pound or something. In some states, unbroken glass soda bottles have a return value of 5c or 10c by law; you could look for those and collect t... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do you make sex magic feel like a natural part of a setting? Just do what you are already doing. First, make it necessary to perform some spells; they require the energy of two genders joined. I might even make it distasteful to the female, but she does it out of necessity. I'd let the men volunteer. Yeah, they will be drained for a day or more, but sex for m... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Is head-hopping always bad? I am a scientist, and my first reaction to poorly argued questions is often to criticize the logic. Which I will do here, but before I do, I will say there is nothing inherently wrong with head-hopping if it is done right. The bad logic here is arguing that because famous, one in a million authors h... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Deus Ex Machina -- How to identify? The issue with Deus Ex Machina (DEM), regardless of when it occurs, is when you have led the reader (by whatever means) to expect your character to solve her own problem, and she gets a win by the gods doing her a favor out of nowhere. Readers will accept undeserved bad luck, but they expect the her... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Subplots better than the main plot You can make a story like that a "change of life" story for your MC. "Coming of age" is just one kind of change of life, there are others, they all just mean she comes to a new understanding of life due to the events in the story. In other words these subplots influence her thinking, she comes to un... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Snowflake Method: Step 3 - What is important to a character story line? Preface: What the Snowflake method [SFM] doesn't provide. I have added this after my main post, to make this explicit. In SFM Step 3, you decide upon your main characters motivation, goal, conflict, and epiphany. You provide a one-sentence story line. Clearly these notes do not determine your charac... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to simulate someone talking with a full mouth? Although I don't recommend trying to reproduce the phonetic sound; it is pretty easy to figure out. The tongue cannot touch the palate (roof of the mouth) or the teeth because it is blocked by food; so plosives like "T", "K", palate "G" (like in "Get"), "D" are suppressed. Lip plosives ("P", "B") cou... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Dissertation results section - report variables or operationalizations? Either way could work, but given this specific choice with no further information, I (a former university professor, a PhD, currently a full time research scientist) would report the version with the tests , what you call operationalizations. The correlation could presumably be dependent upon someth... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Female Detective I would suggest perusing the following list: American Women Firsts. I have listed excerpts below that definitely involved women being in charge of men, and men obviously accepting that. My conclusion is, you could plausibly put your detective anywhere in 1943 to 1972 with real-life precedent for you... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Is this easter egg too obvious? I think this depends on the time period of your story; if somebody recognizes those names as Nirvana but your story is set in medieval times or a fantasy world, this could jerk them out of any immersion they are in, reminding them that the narrator isn't from that time and world, reminding them they ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Writing about a topic which you don't have personal experience in Authors have to write about things they haven't experienced all the time. Just look at crime authors writing for TV or Movies: They must show characters being raped, murdered, burned alive, mugged and shot. They must show characters committing those crimes against others. They must show children bein... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Publication advice on a adult-themed account If you actually want to make money, I'd suggest trying the traditional route of getting an agent to sell the book to a publisher. It is something to learn how to do, but it doesn't cost you ANY money to learn it, send your query letters (by email), secure an agent, and have them try to sell it. Not a... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Is permission needed to use a fictitious character from another novel in my story as a point of reference? That is a bad idea, and yes, it is possible you can be sued for damages. Other fictional characters are somebody else's work, as a general rule you cannot steal them. Those authors have the right to any profits earned by those characters in any way. They also have the right to control how their char... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Characters' motivation and feelings on defending against an alien invasion I should think most fighters are not defending "humanity" in general, they are fighting on behalf of the people they know and the way of life they think can be salvaged. Your emotions and values are tied up in other people; the residents of your village, home town, neighborhood. The people you see i... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Do multiple potential love interests dilute tension and diminish drama? I think FOUR is too many interactions, you dilute the focus by having so many characters competing for the same guy, especially if the romance is a subplot. They are too hard for the reader to keep track of and remember who is who. I would limit it to three if it were a central plot point, and two a... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Will my one sentence prologue work? +1 Galastel. This prologue has no purpose, readers don't care who wrote a book, and you say this makes no difference in the book itself. If it were a 1st person book, this is not needed; the MC wrote it. If it is a 3rd person limited book about the MC Mary, then trying to explain who wrote it is like... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do you write boy & girl protagonists without turning them into a love story? A good example is the current TV Series "Elementary", in which Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Joan Watson are partners, cohabit, and although fond of each other have avoided all romantic involvement. Both have their own love lives; Joan has had at least two lovers in the course of the series thus far, a... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do you escalate a story's plot after killing the Big Bad? > How do you escalate a story's plot after killing the Big Bad? A Series? It sounds like you plot a series. For those, from the beginning your intent should be to defeat a new villain in each story, and they should be (as Erin Thursby said before me) of similar power but in different colors, with d... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: What are key features and pacing in a satisfying ending to a science fiction novel? Leave the readers imagining the future. For me, at least, a satisfying ending, besides the things you have mentioned, leaves me imagining the future, for the MC(s), and/or for the world they live in. It should signal a new phase in life for the MC(s). Something has changed, either in them personall... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Promoting controversial opinions in a work of fiction In some sense you are talking about an anti-hero; a hero that has qualities or attitudes the audience may think are bad, but put up with because the guy is intent on accomplishing something else that is an obvious good. This is the key to making your MC acceptable instead of alienating: Despite thei... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to write a convincing character with a opinion that differs from the author's? Dig until you discover what fundamental "truth" the bigot rejects. That will usually be the opposite of some fundamental "truth" you fully accept. Accept that people are rational. Reason proceeds from axioms, these are the "givens", statements of fact we find self-evidently true, meaning we do not t... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Interviewing a person for a character Speaking as a research scientist, I cannot really explain to you "how things work in my field." What things? There are myriad things, like in any other profession. How to propose experiments, how to limit research, how to manage students, how to manage professorial duties besides dealing with classe... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Will the publisher/agent tell me what to write? Here is a different perspective: Miranda is a literary agent. She reads your query letter, and she thinks you are describing a book with an interesting premise, and she could probably sell it. Agents work within professional networks, and she has ideas of specific people working for publishers that ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to write a corporate character that likes to toy around with his colleagues? Misery Loves Company. I think you'd have to make him, at least apparently, very observant and intelligent. One way to make him hated and cheerful at the same time is to have him tell jokes about his co-workers, that hurt. To do that, he needs to be able to read their emotions, tell when they are hu... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Does a page-turner have to be continually high-octane? What makes a page turner is that the reader is always wondering what will happen in the next few pages. But, as @Alexander says, it doesn't have to be action, per se. It only means you have a constant hook (a long series of little hooks) of something unresolved, some problem that the MC must solve, ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Misdirection for suspense/plot twists - what's acceptable and what's dishonest? I think the line is subjective, and relates to whether the typical reader will feel like the narrator (that is not the author) cheated or tried to trick them. Of course the author tried to trick them, that isn't the point. It is if the narrator did. So if you are writing 3rd person omniscient, the n... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: I'm producing a play with a character who the audience isn't supposed to know is alive, can I credit the actor in the program? Even actors that play dead people in films get credit. A murdered hooker or mugging victim, for example, on a cop show. I am not sure about unnamed extras in a crowd scene, or shopping mall or street scene, but since your actor shows in the final scene, if there is an exception for extras, this doesn... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Should I avoid sex scenes / nudity in my horror game (or in general)? You need to ask a lawyer. I am not a lawyer, but it is my understanding that in some States (of the USA) it is illegal to portray, even in simulation, animation or cartoon form, sexualized scenes of children, and nudity counts, and your game would probably be considered "sexualized" since you have ot... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Meaning of 'Adapted by [another person's name]' written on book cover? Permission is given by the entity that owns the original copyright, which may be the author, the publisher, or some third party that bought the rights to it. That could even be the person adapting it, or their publisher. "Adapted" usually means updated and edited, perhaps with new examples or experi... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: When is it okay to say the word “now” in a past tense story? It is acceptable when relating a sequence of actions or events. > Jake fed the chickens, then walked the rows of the tomato garden and pulled six new weeds that had sprouted, and now he was throwing a ball for the dog, Reggie. Reggie, panting and waiting for another throw, closed his mouth and turne... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: First draft Word count. I think this is a matter of personal writing style. My first drafts are typically shorter than my final drafts; even though I cut entire pages out of my first drafts, and in one case ten consecutive pages were rewritten into half a page. (In the first draft, I had a plan for a secondary character th... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Should an academic paper contain all text at the same structuring depth? I have published several peer-reviewed scientific papers, also Master's Theses in two different disciplines and a long doctoral dissertation. Your proposed rule is not one I have ever followed, and not one any editor or reviewer ever complained about. I take a pragmatic approach: In some sections li... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: YA Literature - Violence I suggest you search for "knock outs". I've done some research on martial arts, and there are several hot spots on the head that, if struck, can knock somebody out cold, so bad they can fall and fracture their skull on the concrete, perhaps fatally. These knock out points exist on the back of the hea... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to research sex for writing? IMO, pornography is realistic enough; seek out the "homemade" variety. I think you can tell if these are scripted or being "acted". Particularly if there is any hint of role playing; it isn't realistic, and probably if there are multiple camera angles, it isn't realistic. (An exception for iPhone vid... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Exposition: Talking Animals - How do I Reveal This to the Reader? I'd just do it in exposition; not a lot of it. Modified in response to clarifying comment of OP There are two scenarios; based on your comment. Either the characters know they used to be humans, or they don't. Since our own species (homo sapiens sapiens) existed 50,000 years ago (at least) and we d... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Establishing a social circle for a promiscuous character I think you are making a mistake in justifying this woman's promiscuity by her consumption of alcohol, and making a mistake by assuming her promiscuity is a result of lack of control on her part, instead of her making conscious and rational choices to engage in casual sex. I say the latter because yo... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: What are character flaws and what makes a good one? In general, a "good flaw" will matter , meaning it will impair the hero in their quest, and presents an obstacle for them to overcome. Not necessarily permanently, but for the purpose of this story at least. The flaw can be a disease or crippling, or it can be psychological: They hold a grudge, or t... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: What are some examples of an inciting incident that would force a character to go on a quest or adventure? Greed can be an inciting event. People go looking for treasure, to escape poverty. Knowledge can be an inciting event. Suppose the MC knows she and her village are powerless to confront an evil overlord, but in having these dreams of a trapped goddess she believes are real visions, the MC realizes i... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do I finish my stories although I have both ideas and titles for them? I am a discovery writer. I recommend it highly. For me, I begin with a character. All my characters have something "special" about them, something they are good at, as well as a flaw, often something they are not good at, and will need to get around or overcome. Then I start putting them into "thro... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How to give characters a unique voice A character has a "voice" if, when you read about a page worth of that character's dialogue (without any attributions) you could identify the character correctly. Not EVERY character needs a voice; in particular the above test suggests, if they don't even HAVE a page of dialogue in the book, they do... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Can dream reveals make good climaxes for a POV’s internal struggle? I do not think this is a good strategy at all; for the same reason Galastel has cited: It is anti-climactic. There are no consequences to the drama, and the reader feels deceived by the narrator. Those all contribute to a decision to stop reading. One way you might use something like this is to use ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Post scriptum in my soft diary I would continue to use PS. Leave your diary as written, and if you add something, the PS tells you that you added it, after some thought, and if it were me that is worth knowing too: > PS the next day it occurred to me... > > PS It took me a week to think of it, but John probably wasn't trying to ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Sensitivity with disorders/mental illnesses My advice is to provide rough therapy in the book. Accompany your suicidal character with a counterweight character. This does not have to be somebody that loves them, nor does it have to be a main character. The circumstances in this post-apocalyptic world are up to you, engineer them so that someb... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Can i have two low points in a story? It is not bad structure, it is in fact common advice: Try & Fail, Try & Fail, Try &Succeed. It is common advice to writers because many stories have succeeded using this formula. Look at the Die Hard movies or 007 movies; the villain escapes several times before they are finally caught or defeated. ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: "Stealing" jokes It IS a bad thing to do, and possibly a violation of copyright you can be sued for if you make a profit from it. I am not a lawyer, but I have dealt with copyright issues in my profession. Dismissing people as "randos" is not a strategy that works in the court, it makes no difference to the court p... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: What makes "thrilling" writing? Thrillers are about nearly constant conflict and keeping the reader constantly wondering how something will turn out in the next few minutes / pages. I say "nearly" because you need some "story" scenes in there, pauses for the reader to catch their breath and learn what happened, but more so than an... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Respecting classic dramatic structure in a documentary Although I am a strong believer in the 3AS, you don't really need a 3AS in a character study, which is what you are doing: A work of fiction in which the delineation of the central character's personality is more important than the plot. So stuff happens to them, but mostly this is to show the audie... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do you make two characters fall in love? I believe you have to give the boy a skill that the girl really likes. Obviously it can't be fighting; but a bullied boy can still be highly intelligent, or artistic, or musical, or something more unusual that she appreciates. one example, he's awesome with dogs, and despite not defending himself, l... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Is it appropriate to use an emoticon in reminder email to a potential employer? I was a division manager of a public company, at one point in my life (for four years). Not all managers are the same, But for me: Skip the emoji, just tell the truth and ask for a decision. > Dear Sir, > > We discussed a job last xxxx and I left my resume with you. > > I know you were in the midd... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |