Activity for Amadeus
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: How overcome the budget constraint while building a fiction writing career? My advice is to ignore the people that advocate writing a book in one month, or two, or three. Even with no other duties, it takes me at least six months to finish my fifth draft of a book, and I may spend another three months doing more drafts. I don't expect anybody else to follow my formula, it i... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: I'm looking for advice on character development There are whole books on characterization; it is difficult to treat in a few hundred words. What makes characters stand out from each other is what makes the people around you unique; their attitudes, skills, upbringing and background (life up to when we meet them), morals, to some extent their educ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Translating worldbuilding into an interesting opening I am a discovery writer. HERE is my answer to the "How to Open a Novel" Question. However, I do have a formula. Open with a name. In your case the name of your (real) protagonist (the imprisoned one). Doing something, hearing something, sensing something about to change in his situation. This does n... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: What should I do if I can't properly formulate the personality of one of my characters in my novel? Perhaps it would help for you to list what your character is not. Try to think of traits she doesn't have. What professional skills does she lack? Is she not a fighter, not a tech, not a magician? Is she not a leader? Is she not a peacemaker? Is she not clever? Is she not attractive, or sexy? Is sh... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How can I mention errors in the data that I received in my thesis? Where to mention it? Do not publish ANYTHING you know is untrue, or even suspect is untrue. I am a PhD, a research scientist and former college professor. You are just in trouble. You cannot publish conclusions that do not hold if the data is in error, you will be publishing a known falsehood. Your best bet is to resc... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Druid girl learns necromancy It doesn't make sense that something can be 50% eaten AND fleshless; if all that is left is bones, it is 100% eaten. It sounds like the girl is using the tool of necromancy to further her love of the living; she is rejecting the permanency of death, and sees a way for the rabbit to "live" again, to ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Are chapters with a single character inherently more difficult for an average reader to connect with? (And do you have any tips.) I suspect you don't have tension; in the sense that the readers are not wondering "what happens next?" Your character may be cold and scared and (loves being alone? That kind of doesn't fit here), and maybe he needs to get to the stream, but he's not doing anything but plodding to the stream, and th... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Writing part word I would finish the word with two dashes (also called an em-dash, but for traditional submission format, two regular dashes are used to indicate this), no space between the last letter of the half word and the dashes. Many editors will autocorrect two dashes to an m-dash for you. I turn that off and p... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Is genre ever relevant to the writing process? You must comply, resistance is futile. It is precisely because genres are used to sell books that you should be very much aware of what is expected within the genre you write. You need to tell your agent what you wrote, they expect you to give them a genre, or perhaps a twist on a genre: "Magic in ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Is it bad if I sidetrack to a backstory that’s not really necessary but is interesting? Chapters have been as short as a single sentence; Stephen King is famous for a single sentence chapter. Other famous authors have written chapters of a single page. In general, a chapter break occurs when the story changes POV, or there has been a space jump or time jump AND a change of cast. We cha... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Writing a song as the hook I think this is a bad idea. I agree that you will be left with a poem, NOT a song, and if that is the case, open with a rhyming poem that reads like a poem and promises the reader something about the story. (The hook). That might work. I do use song in my stories, once or twice per story, but it is... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Physical description of characters You have to ask yourself, "does it matter in any specific way?". The answer is usually "no." I usually describe characters very generally, and NEVER in prose. If they are described, they are described by characters or by themselves, in dialogue, and that dialogue is always connected to the immedia... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Should I end my story with a happy or sad ending? I don't think this should preclude a happy ending. From what you write, it looks to me like a girl, that was not even "dating or anything" boy X but was "in love" with him, had sex with another boy Y. Perhaps she was drunk or high. Perhaps she had some previous relationship with boy Y and it went fu... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Dropping subtle hints about a character's sexuality People Say in Jest What They Mean in Earnest. I am adding a separate answer because I thought of something unrelated to my first. The above is a saying with much truth in it: People often joke about things, when they are probing, or unsure of the company they keep, so that if anybody takes offense t... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: In what order should I name characters? Reverse order of importance. The order of entry is an opportunity for you to create conflict. To do that, you should list them in the order of reaction by the MC, greatest last , so you can move into describing that reaction. If I say "Bob, John and Rob entered" but my MC truly hates (or loves) Bo... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Dropping subtle hints about a character's sexuality First, homosexual or bisexuality is not necessarily something that enters into her everyday life. A good way to give clues toward that is to devise situations in which she can defend others that are homosexuals or bisexuals, have somebody (unimportant) comment on homosexuality as a "choice" or "dise... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: 'The Chosen One' paradox In my opinion, the chosen one is made that way, whether they know it or not. IRL, the kings of old were warriors, born with a talent for fighting that was recognized, cultured and taught, if they were "chosen" it was by fate. I prefer to think they were not chosen at all, but the recipient of blind ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Given how much self-promotion modern writers need to do, are Query Letters still worth writing? Query letters are absolutely worth writing. I cannot say self-publishing is NOT viable, but I think the success rate is even more abysmal than finding an agent and getting "traditionally" published. You can look at other answers to "self-publishing" on the site; I've quoted before the average earnin... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What, exactly, is a character study? A character study is a character portrayal, it shows the life and concerns of one (or a few) characters, why they do what they do, so you get to know them. They can be entertaining, immersing the reader in their world. There is no overarching goal for these characters that they strive to achieve; bu... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What would a FtM transman's, who was born in 1990, life be like? I don't recall hearing at all about Transgenders in the 90's, and I'm very much a live-and-let-live liberal on all sexual orientation issues. I imagine the vast majority of people would just class this as homosexual behavior and discriminate on that basis, and the history of that struggle is reasona... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Ordinary writing or Prose: how to make it immersive? Try writing simply, and ignoring time. You are using too many intensifiers, and hyperbolic ones: - quick glance - pure disappointment - instantly look - anger exploded - At least have - he froze - as little as possible - he always have to You don't trust your reader to read the scene and follow i... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is it possible to use the word "it" too much? You are not overusing "it" or "its", the only thing to worry about with pronouns is ambiguous reference; which I don't see in your example. An ambiguous pronoun reference: Normally a pronoun refers to whichever the previous noun was. A noun is a person, place or thing, and it gets confusing when a s... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How should I move the story forward with the support cast while hiding a plot twist regarding the MC from the reader? Hang a lantern on it. If possible, I would revise your story to make the MC's transformation secret but brief, in fact you can take a chapter where the rest of the group is trying to find the MC, and succeeds. Then the MC conceals from them what happened to them, makes up an excuse. "I don't remembe... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Why do literary magazines insist on cover letters? You're only half right. You seem to have forgotten these people are in business to make money by selling works, so the cover letter does two things for them that have nothing to do with your story in particular: They help them filter out submissions that have a lower probability of earning money. A ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How do I add tension to a story, when the reader knows the MC survives? Tension is caused by reader's wanting to know "what happens next". The MC survives in nearly every novel, in fact the MC dies so infrequently that people don't like those novels. They assume your MC will survive. Tension is created by situations in which the reader isn't sure what is going to happe... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Why do writers use pseudonyms? Besides "personal privacy" there is "professional privacy" , an author that holds a sensitive full time job, in public, may not want to publish under their real name because the content of their fiction may have some impact on their professional life. Their fiction may, for example, contain explicit... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Will an explicit resemblance to an Actor put-off the readers disliking him? It is a bad idea in general for a writer to ever use a living person as a reference point. For one, people aren't famous forever, secondly, you risk people not knowing who you are talking about (some readers don't watch TV or movies, they prefer their entertainment in the form of novels), third, you ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Characterisation: What lines can an antihero cross while retaining reader sympathy? To me, the line you cannot cross is your hero intentionally harming an innocent for their personal pleasure (or irrational anger); that includes not just adults and children but dogs and pets. Raping an innocent girl, smothering an infant for the fun of it, kicking a friendly dog in the face, all of... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Series: How can I get my reader to not expect any one genre? Other than an explicit "disclaimer" in an author's note or something, I really don't think you can. If I buy five books set in a dystopian fantasy (I might), I will be disappointed if the sixth book is a romantic comedy. My best suggestion would be to be explicit in a sub-title or something, and cal... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Third Person POV: What level of telling is acceptable for character motivation? The difference between showing and telling, as it applies to story writing, is whether you create a scene that conveys information, or whether you state the information explicitly. So instead of arguing that everything is telling, let us talk about the decision of whether to show a visual or scene, o... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Characterisation: How to make it evident that a character's flawed perspective is intentional? I'd leave it. As far as a 25 year old male "adopting" a 13 year old girl; my suspension of disbelief is already broken. Without a blood relation, I'd be amazed if any court allowed that, or closet pedophiles would be adopting them daily. You'd have a better chance with same-gender professor that IS ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: The stages of writing - what are they? After The First Draft, I do several things. I often have ten drafts (of novels that run over 120,000 words). Make sure you have a separate backup of your work before you begin changing it, every time. My backups have the date & time of the backup in the name. Second Draft, Identify and fix non-crea... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How long can a fantasy novel stay in metaphorical Kansas? I don't think 4000 words is too long; not at all. I am presuming this is a 100,000 word novel, I think you have 10% (10,000 words) for something "magical" to happen. I base that on the standard Three Act Structure, the first 10% of your work is introducing us to the Real World of your protagonist. T... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to write an introductory dialogue? Speaking as a professor (with a PhD), I would introduce myself, to a friend of a friend, by my first name. As an aside, a saleswoman should not be introduced as "a colleague" in a university setting, a colleague is somebody of similar rank, and in this setting implies a PhD. That is certainly what I ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Anticlimactic ending as a surprise after climax? Personally, I do not find this a satisfying ending, in fact in a way, it ruins the story. The villain's character arc was completed when he died in the major battle, they should have found his body in the rubble. So instead of the happily ever after ending you gave your heroes, after this incident, ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Publication: What to do about a high wordcount debut novel? +1 Arcanist Lupus for doing the research I was thinking of doing! I agree your novel is probably not too long and can get published. But I also believe it would be easier to attract agents if it were somewhat shorter. So I will add different advice than just answering the question. Namely, go throu... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: I suck at plots. Is there a way to sort of train oneself to think of creative plots, specifically in scifi? Take your eyes off the plot. Focus on originality in your characters and setting. I'm not saying this is easier, it isn't always easy to create new characters and new character dynamics, but this approach can work to create interesting plots simply because the plots are "natural" outcomes, not pre-e... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to decide between usage of a paragraph and a dialogue? You are providing too much detail, and it is confusing, and therefore boring the reader. What you need to do is write the take-away consequences of these exchanges, forget the verbatim of what either Dr. Zhang or Richard say. Imagine you are told the above in a meeting. Now, an hour later, in the br... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How do you tell the reader that the setting is normal modern day? It is easy enough, I would think: Contrive some reason to mention the year. > Mike opened the box to unveil Nancy's birthday cake. "What do you think?" > > Alice looked and suppressed a laugh, the cake had nice flowers and vines, but he'd had piped on it, Happy Birthday Nancy! 1978 -- 2018. > > "O... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How can I make an in-universe random event feel like it was really random instead of just RNJesus' will? My characters often have unusual traits or skills, and my solution to this dilemma is two-fold: First, they are born with their skill, along with some deficits. I never grant a skill without a penalty to go with it; in personality, thinking, etc. I also shy away from "best in the world" skills, I may... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Should I be able to 'feel' my outline? Yes, you should be able to 'feel' your outline. I admit I don't really outline in writing, although I do have well defined characters and a problem in my head before I begin writing, and I do feel the emotions of my characters in scenes before I write them. I think if your goal is to evoke emotions... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Overcoming "Possibility Paralysis"? Anchor Yourself. I would say, adopt a discovery writing paradigm, and focus on a character. Most of my stories begin with a character that has some rare (and interesting) real-world ability. I find a matching thing she sucks at it. I pick an age and start writing about her, deciding things about her... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Do I have to keep saying “_____ thought,”after I put italics? My own convention is to format thoughts much like dialogue, in italics, without the quotes. So I will often start a new paragraph, in italics. He's trying to trick me. I will intentionally, early on, add the 'she thought' tag, to establish this convention: > He's trying to trick me, Sandra thought... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Character motivations facing death? Yes, it is realistic. Other motivations may be out there, like mating and having children, acquiring wealth and/or fame, acquiring power -- but some of these are 'artificial' in the sense that early hunter-gatherers with our same mental capacity did not really have wealth or fame to acquire, they bar... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How do you generally share your novels with the masses? From OP in comments: > I turn 19 in a month. I've been writing fiction since I was about 8 or 9. I love it. I'm not in it for the money, I just want people to read my stories. I wouldn't care if I lost more money than I make ... In that case, The advice of Faythe85 is good. I'd say your next step i... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Will it be disappointing for the reader to not know who the main character is until the end? YES it will be disappointing. +1 Mark, I think the same; a story is about a main character. I would add this: Introduce his POV first, he will be assumed to be the MC. Then yes, you can let his sidekicks die, even if they are "leaders". Keep his POV the most intimate, that is another signal of MC, ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to create a page turning effect if there is no suspense? The page turning effect can be for the long term, but it is much more important for it to be short term. The reader should always be wondering "what happens next", and this is much of what causes page-turning. Your character, even by your own short description, can be facing a slew of multiple suspe... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Of plottwists and endings > People from the comments dislike dream twists but I'm curious how stories like "Alice in wonderland" or "Total recall" or "Wizard of Oz" pulled those endings off. The problem with "just a dream" is generally that the reader is left with the impression "nothing really happened." That is a disappoin... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is it true that "Any story can be great in the hands of the right storyteller"? > a writer does not have to worry about looking for a "great idea" for a story, but simply focus on taking fairly interesting story ideas and making them as enjoyable to read as possible. Is that correct? That is almost correct; but the question as phrased has hidden caveats. For one, "a fairly int... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Alternatives to starting a sentence with well It is easy to get stuck on a word and overuse it. It is something a writer should be aware of; even if it is difficult. Part of writing is your self-analysis. WHY are you using "Well" ? What does that mean to you? What purpose is it serving? To me, "Well," indicates the speaker was expecting someth... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |