Activity for Amadeusâ€
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: How does one gauge the strength of any particular adverb? Adverbs within dialogue are fine, if real people use them (like really). I would avoid stuffing an adverb into dialogue, or using dialogue as a cheat to express with an adverb what should be exposition. The line "That horse nickered nervously," does not sound like something a person would say. They w... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Do people keep reading because of what's ahead or what's behind? Neither. People keep reading because they enjoy what I would call the assisted imagination of reading. Or watching the show or movie, or playing the role playing game, all of these are forms of assisted imagination. When the assistant (the authors of such products) are poor at their job, the imagine... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Do editors rewrite? I'd also say it is worth seeing what "light editorial" is about. It might be worth asking what is driving them to change, I'd ask about a few (three) specific changes you see as critical that are ruined by the editorial changes. If you can understand the nature of their concerns, you might be able ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What is the difference between character-driven stories and plot-driven stories? Character driven is typically about life changes (or life ending) for a character, basically the character(s) undergo some kind of deep emotional transformation that is life-changing. Becoming a sexualized adult, breaking out of an abusive relationship, losing a child or parent. However, in the proce... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What to avoid when writing a villain that is insane? The main thing I see, in such a novel, is avoiding having this insanity be the equivalent of a deus ex machina that ultimately defeats him. I think the hero must defeat him in a way that would work even if he were not insane. It would be an unsatisfying ending if after a long campaign in which Dr. N... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is killing a character to further the plot necessarily a bad thing? I know this answer is late, but for anybody coming across this question, the premise is wrong. Characters die in fiction all the time. Consider (in multiple stories) a secret service agent that fails in his duty to keep the President from being assassinated. Or a family dealing with the accidental de... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Character pivots, where to put them Nearly all successful stories fall into the three act structure; the first act is the setup and definition of a problem or pivotal change in the characters life. In the first Harry Potter novel, ACT I consists of Harry turning eleven, Hagrid coming to his house at that moment to inform him he is goin... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to tactfully inform readers of differences in the book world to the real world? You can also tell about such features by having a walk-on character with a deformity or amputation. I have met at least four people missing one or more fingers, or with a half finger. Check out this link of disabled politicians (in the US, but also elsewhere): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\of\p... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Can I reference real companies in a novel? I am not a lawyer, so do some legal research. The following is my opinion and not legal advice. They may well regard this is defamation, if your character can break into them it means they have lax security and their customer's information is not safe with them. It means they are not safeguarding th... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: When writing down a huge amounts of detail is inevitable The best way I have seen to infodump is through conflict, preferably between people that (at least for the moment) don't like each other, or are trying to top each other. Here is my analysis. > Those Warbots are the result of some megalomaniac idiot's attempt at creating walkers. This is unnecessar... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What makes a good death scene? We scream "please don't" because of about half a book's worth of endearments, and making the character like somebody we would like in our own life, or at least in our life if WE were a character in this book (like the protagonist, or somebody else we identify with). There are some "automatic" endear... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Example of a fictional story without any characters (the story being 1000+ words) I don't have examples of what you ask for, but in the revision: You could say that the role of "characters" is that they have choices and intents. The sun does not choose to rise, the volcano does not choose to erupt, and the waves do not choose to crash. A character, be it a fish or dog on the beac... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to describe a seemingly-random doodle/symbol, whose details are significant? A script is not supposed to contain images, so you can't include one. Use the description you have, without revealing it is Chinese, and later reveal the source. Anybody considering your screenplay is going to read 100% of it ten times before they commit any resources [other than their reading time]... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Plot and characters conflict too much People will forgive a war crime if the character committing it is NOT motivated by cruelty or hatred or bigotry, but is motivated by some combination of love and logistical necessity. I don't know your story so I will make up a similar situation: Suppose my character knows for certain that a terror... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How do I introduce a room of 4 new characters? In screenwriting you should not have any "chunky" descriptions at all. More than six lines is probably too many; the rule of thumb in screenwriting is that, if you cannot see it, don't write about it. (of course you can see if somebody is shy, haughty, unkempt, doesn't belong where they are, are conf... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Want to write, have ideas, no story telling techniques or experience, feeling lost? Find an author you like. For me I like Stephen King, or Orson Scott Card, or half a dozen others. Books I personally enjoyed that also sold millions of copies. Now, take a scene or a long section of dialogue in one of these books. Say we took dialogue, it is always a toughie. First, type it into yo... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Writing a letter from the future 2050 is not a bad place; I can provide a scientific perspective. There is a whole theory in science about the lifecycle of innovations; see Thomas Kuhn and his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The upshot is that typically it can take about 50 years from a discovery (or invention) of so... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: To break free and write something new or finish the rough draft There is a fourth option you barely mentioned. Distillation. You can try this on just a few pages, a chapter, whatever. If you think your writing is poor, do the whole story this way. First, make a backup of what you have written so you can refer to it later, in case you have any gems of description... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How can I get into the mindset to write? One solution that usually works is to write when you wake up, when nothing has happened in the day. I write for two hours every morning. My alarm is set for 4:30 AM, I am at the keyboard by 5:00 AM, and I write until 7:00 AM. Nobody calls, the only interruptions are the dog asking to go outside and r... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What would you call non human "people"? You could try going in the negative. "You're not a god." Or, "You're not infallible." Or, "Nobody is perfect." You could try going sympathetic. "We all make mistakes. Welcome to the club." Or, "How about that, you are normal, after all." Or, "You've only got six limbs, you can't be expected to c... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Writing a full conversation in free indirect speech The third person narrator can describe the thoughts and feelings of the characters, both of them, without restriction. Instead of the dialogue of a conversation between Bill and Chuck, I would describe the effect of each line on the participants, with paragraph breaks (and the use of names) to indic... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Broken up dialog in single paragraph You put a comma (even if a period is intended) when you are going to follow the quote mark with a tag or any other writing. You put a period if the end of the quote is also the end of the sentence. (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Using fake swear words without them seeming out of place to the reader First, I would not do the "translation" of your last sentence. Second, you need to understand that swear words are typically one or two syllables, and the audio effect needs to be somewhat similar. Another word for "fuck" is "intercourse", but it is nearly impossible to use "intercourse!" as a swea... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How can I write a realistic motorcycle crash? My approach to this, which I stole from other authors, is to not worry about time or space and describe the action of the accident in detail, use as much space as you want. There is an actual real life phenomenon in which adrenalin floods the brain in an emergency and it seems to slow down time. I h... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How can I make a setting which shows something? I think the word "setting" is too broad for what you are talking about; in both your examples, Star Wars and Hunger Games, the specific component of "setting" that you are referring to is the culture of the characters. In Star Wars, all the main characters know and believe in the magic of The Force,... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Present tense or Future tense (When writing articles or technical guides) When writing a technical article, use the command voice in present tense and do not use ambiguous words like "very clean". > Use a plain non-serif font for your article. Anything else looks non-professional, distracts from the text, and may cause readers to stop reading. Do not use "you should", ob... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to make a statement formulated like an exclamation, but even-toned? Stop trying to save characters typed. You can characterize the tone of the sentence with another entire sentence even longer than the uttered words. > Bill closed his eyes for a moment, his lips tightly compressed. "Boy, was I wrong." > > Bill looked to Cindy, his eyes wide and lips parted in elati... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to know the reason for rejection? I have been rejected many times with no explanation. I think sometimes, like any competition, what I wrote is just not the best of what they had to choose from at the time. They can't publish everything, some editors say they cannot publish 1% of everything they receive, so there is no 'reason' I go... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to write a character that knows a lot about explosives? The easiest way to make your character an expert is to make all your other characters fear him, respect him, or be defeated by him, in his field. You characterize your Chief of the Bomb Squad as having won national honors for teaching Bomb disarmament, multiple medals for courage in the line of duty... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How do you get the legal disclaimer notice before you publish your fiction/non-fiction book? On the contrary, they do copy from each other, all the time. See this linkOn Contract Drafting and Plagiarism. The key paragraph there is this, I have highlighted the most important sentence: > In mainstream drafting, copying-and-pasting from other contracts is certainly no sin. But that’s not beca... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is a neutral/impartial story "boring"? I think a story can be impartial without being boring. IMO a story is boring when it lacks conflict or unresolved conflict. Readers are interested at first by interesting characters, but that won't last long. They become interested in the story because of conflicts, and wondering what the characters... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to avoid repetitive sentences? (Describing actions, he/she) If I am not addressing your question about repetitiveness, clarify it and I will edit. I do see a few problems with your prose. In no particular order: 1) I don't understand the value of "urged". The speech doesn't sound like urging, it sounds like agreement, and speaks for itself. Just 'said' woul... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Does adding an indefinite article in this sentence hurt the flow, or does it improve clarity? In the second case, yes add it. It would make it more clear. In general, if you detect ambiguity, eliminate it, clarity trumps all else. (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Other Forms of Partitioning a Novel Unless your novel is intended for the 6-9 age bracket, explicitly telling the reader the "moral of the story" is a terrible idea. Readers of novels are not reading to be educated by your wisdom, they are reading to be entertained. If they detect you are preaching to them (telling them how they shoul... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Storyteller/creator vs writer For one, a literal story teller can use all the body language, vocal tones and facial expressions they want to convey what their characters mean, which you must find another way to do in print. One way is to include some illustrations, which is very common in children's books, but that is not "writin... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to draw the line between expository and argumentative writing? Writing is typically combined; there is an expository part, then an argumentative part. Expository writing can exist by itself, in encyclopedic or historical reference works (like, "here are the properties of carbon", or "this is what happened at the battle of York"). However, arguments make little ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: If I unnofficially create a theory and use it in my story, will it have any validity that I'm the author of such theory? It will have validity in the sense that if the theory is original AND you get published so your theory can be found by strangers, then somebody doing diligent research should find you as the earliest author. That said, the world is unfair. In the realm of mathematics, which we should think would be ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How can I ban someone from publishing my work without my permission? I am not a lawyer, but I do know you own the copyright on the material from the moment you finished it. Other's cannot publish it for money without your permission. Unfortunately, you need to get a lawyer to write a cease-and-desist letter for anybody that does, or perhaps you can find a model for on... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Sounds: how to describe them? To me, a growl sounds like a very loud and sustained clearing of the throat, or a combination of that and a shout caused by injury, as people (particularly men) may do when they hurt themselves. Surely the residents of your garage have done something to hurt themselves in the past: breaking a finger ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to improve the flow of short scenes It is hard to answer from what is in your question, but scenes you feel are too short are (in my experience) under-imagined, or under-conflicted, or you are engaging in too much 'telling' about how people feel or think, without enough 'showing' through action. An under-conflicted scene is when somet... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to write dialogue where only some of the words matter? I would use the first method, but underline or bold the code words, italicization is too subtle. We (the reader) are supposed to be in on the trick, so it should not be so subtle that we miss it. (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What should a new edition of a novel consist of? Just my opinion, but I think it depends on how many readers you have. Correcting actual errors in grammar or spelling is always useful. The same goes for other errors: I once almost missed a line where I attributed a line of speech to the wrong character; e.g. "John said" instead of "Alice said". A... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to avoid constantly starting paragraphs with "The character did this" "The character did that"? You can skip the "Colin smiled." line, and just imply it, using the tag. > "I'm sure the other patients will appreciate that as well," Colin said, pleased. "You been to the children's ward yet?" Some of these actions can be left off, or expanded, or put into the dialogue. Instead of Colin nodded (... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How does one write fluff? A lighthearted story is generally one where the consequences of failure are mostly the status quo. The MC isn't going to die or go bankrupt if they fail. They must have something at stake (money perhaps, lifelong dreams) but if they fail their life isn't ruined. Nevertheless, the reader wants the MC ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is the following analogy of natural selection effective and clear? The problem with the analogy is that evolution is not just that certain shapes are more fit than others. There must be iteration, so that the best of terrible fits is selected. When I begin a genetic algorithm (a form of search for a solution to a problem using a computer), all the organisms are ra... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is it dull to have a world where all characters cannot speak properly? This is an opinion based answer, my opinion is I would put it down pretty quickly. Anything that is made intentionally difficult to read slows me down, particularly if misspellings don't sound any different than the fully spelled word: "Did u do the thing" sounds absolutely the same as "Did you do th... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: When a character tells a long story, is it always an info dump? Another way to get a long story out is to use an argumentative listener. The biggest problem with a long story is that, IRL, nobody sits and listens to a long story from somebody they consider an antagonist. Unless they are held at gunpoint, they will argue. If they can't argue, they aren't absorbin... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Plot twist twist = straight plot twist > how to incorporate such a "straight twist" successfully, without making the story boring because of the straightness of the plot? Make your character in the second round smart, and the twist preventable if you are smart enough. Imagine this: Team Dead is infiltrating a high tech complex, all dres... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Does misspelling words for the sake of bad English improve the immersion or distract the reader? I wouldn't write that way. When I read, I internally hear what the characters are saying, and I certainly cannot hear any misspellings! If they are using slang or an actual local dialect, "y'all" or "fuhgeddaboutit" might be what I hear. Those are not misspellings, they are an accurate representatio... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is it wrong to use the same word multiple times within a few sentences? I think it weakens the prose, unless it is clearly intentional ("he had a big head, big teeth, a big nose, a big attitude.") In your example, "sleek" is not a very precise description, to me. The very fact that you apply it to both a building and a door suggests that lack of precision. You can actua... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |