Activity for Amadeus
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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A: Should I avoid "big words" when writing to a younger audience? The easiest way to do this is have a character use it, and another character (like yourself, not knowing the word at that age) ask what it means, or look it up, or otherwise figure out what it means. You can even use this as a moment of conflict, or humor. > "It's ubiquitous," Angela said. > > Kev... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: I’m having a hard time deciding whether this is a redemption arc I would not call it a redemption arc, I could see this as simple revenge for somebody taking some piece of property he was enjoying. In a redemption, the character realizes they have been wrong and becomes a better person. This sounds more like a character that promised consequences, delivered them,... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Letting a (secondary) antagonist leave mid story - Should it be avoided? Your story has to make sense, the plot has to make sense. It has to seem like the characters are making realistic decisions for their situation, with their goals. What they say and do cannot come out of nowhere, or be left unexplained. How they do it cannot come out of nowhere, or be left unexplaine... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Correct use of "Call for Proposals" in plural context I believe that is incorrect. A single call is calling for multiple proposals for addressing a single task, hence "A call for proposals". If there are multiple tasks, you emit multiple calls, each asking for multiple proposals. Those are correctly called "calls for proposals". e.g. "These are all the... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Proofreading a novel: when should exclamation marks be used? I disagree, they are better if they are not exclamatory. It is like saying "Spare me." in response to an unfunny joke. An exclamation point changes the meaning, it is intended to be bored cynicism, NOT a positive response, not fear, not anything exclamatory at all. The same for "Good grief." and "G... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: My first comedy plot draft is very bland - how far can I go on calling this out? > ...shout-outs by the main character to those other stories, as well as celebrities. > The hope is that any readers of similar fiction will find the references and shoutouts funny. However, I don't know how far I can take these references. Don't Make Those Reference At All. They just emphasize t... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Bad to start story with VR/non-real scene? I don't think it's a good idea; when a reader opens a book they expect to learn some things about the characters in their normal world. If you open with a VR, the reader will assume that IS the normal world, and real. Orcs and other fantasy beings are only known because in some fantasy (like Lord of ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Giving a character trauma but not "diagnosing" her? You don't have to diagnose it as "PTSD" or whatever name WE use for it, but you can have a character call it out as a real thing: They are an expert, they have seen many soldiers with a similar collection of symptoms, perhaps as a comfort to the person suffering this (i.e. you are not alone, you are ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Computer science academic conference paper using "randvar" instead of "random variable" I peer review many papers; half a dozen this year. If it is defined before the first use (e.g. "For brevity we use 'randvar' to specify random variables, 'logvar' to specify logical variables.") then I wouldn't complain. Authors are entitled to invent terminology for a paper, as long as it does... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How do I introduce dark themes? The fourth chapter is too late. You need to do this within the first 10% of the story (by page count), anything more is too late. If your MC does violent things for good reason, you need to give the reader the idea they are capable of this early on. At the beginning of a story, the reader is ready f... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Spiritual elements in a science-fiction novel > Does using unexplained spiritual elements (soul, "spiritual"/non-physical beings, afterlife, God, etc.) in a story with a futuristic setting make it science fantasy rather than science fiction? If they are treated as real then yes. If we just have a scifi MC that believes in God and souls and ghos... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is my story "too diverse"? I don't think your diversity is a problem, however, from a writing perspective, I DO think that any special quality of a character should have some impact on the plot or the character. So my answer is that A story can be "too diverse" in the sense that the author is specifying Jack is gay, but Jack ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How do you write short-short nonfiction? I think it is pretty easy, even as a true story. Pick your story, and try Intro, Complication, Try, Resolution. One or two sentences each. Here are two 80 word solutions. > When I was ten, my allowance was three dollars a week. It didn't go far. One day, I saw the house on the corner had a yard full... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Can you pitch an outline? As Mark says, not without a track record of one bestseller after another. But if you got that, you should be pretty rich, so why bother? Rowling and Stephen King probably don't worry about stuff like that, they'd rather NOT be on deadline, just in case a film deal comes along or they get a different ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How can I make "acts of patience" exciting? The problem with an act of patience is that it is just waiting for something else to happen. One way I can think of to make that "exciting" is by making the wait a progression, so incrementally it is happening and the patient character is seeing things happen, and hoping they mean what she thinks th... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Describing the taste of food > Is this considered a bad writing habit, or is it all a matter of opinion? I consider it mediocre writing. I don't think it is possible to write actual taste experiences, at best you can refer to things your readers may remember having done, or compare things they should remember. I'll agree with ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Difference between Abstract, Introduction and Conclusion in a research paper The abstract is a short description of the paper as a whole: e.g. with one or two sentences each: - The specific area of interest your problem lies in - The specific problem in that area your paper will address - What your contribution is that will help this - The results of your contribution. ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How many character flaws can the main character overcome? > OP: Can all three of these character flaws be resolved? Probably. > OP: Is there a general rule to determine how many character flaws can be fixed? No, it all depends on how clever you are in the introduction of the character, inventing the flaws, connecting them, and inventing the journey... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Maintaining distance Build yourself an excuse for knowing what you wish to reveal; the story you are currently telling was related to you by others. > When Rodrick first told Geoffrey's tale, he tells us, on this journey Geoffrey had fallen in love with Antonia, though even Geoffrey, at the time, did not recognize this ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: I feel like that misinformation feels too artificial as a plot-driving force in my story, how can it be more natural? I think the problem here (and the reason the OP feels it "tastes artificial") is too much coincidence: First, we have deer in the forest, but for some unexplained reason the dragon cannot find a single one, so he steals a sheep, and is so unlucky or careless doing it that he is seen by a shepherd. T... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is it the right call to title my romance a 'legend'? I don't think the "unauthenticated" part is necessary, but a legend is a story told about somebody else, a traditional story, and it can't be a "tradition" if it is being told for the first time by the MC. In fiction, an original story titled a "legend" is fine, but the pretense would have to be thi... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to plausibly write a character with a hidden skill I think you don't have to show her USING the dagger, you can hide the skill in plain sight: She knows about daggers, she knows about dagger-fighting, the terminology, the stances, the holds, the moves. Maybe even let her act some out, with a stick or a carrot or something, to demonstrate what someone... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to write a character that isn't who they claim? You can create a character that is a fraud, and seems to have inherent weaknesses, but once in a while they act out of character and against their supposed weakness, in some situation that is critical. The reader will suspect the weakness is not really a weakness, and thus the character is a fraud, ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Documenting framework features and descriptions Personally I use Latex, more specifically pdflatex, which is free to download. It is text-based, learning it will probably take a week or two, but there are online examples and help through StackExchange. The advantage is you can produce charts, diagrams, flowcharts and anything else you want (art f... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What makes a character irredeemable? In my view what makes a character irredeemable is doing something that cannot ever be forgotten, that they cannot atone for even by sacrificing their own life. But that also becomes a matter of opinion, some people are willing to forgive anything. Francine (answering earlier than me) brings up Darth... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to "Start as close to the end as possible", and why to do so? What he means is avoid lengthy preamble and explanation for a story setup, but really it is hard to understand "start as close to the end as possible" without understanding story structure in general. It is a vague dictum. In a typical popular and commercially successful story, a character is intr... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Double lies as sources of conflict in a single arc I don't think it is too much. Many characters have "double lies", and in a way one can block the other. You say the deep lie won't make your MC fail in action, but that isn't true: You say the MC cannot defeat the antagonist without learning both truths: Thus continuing to believe the deep lie would ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Detail vs. filler I include detail because I think the job of the prose is to assist the imagination of the reader. If there is resonance on other levels, that's great, but it isn't a necessity in my book. The reader needs to imagine a visual scene, an audio scene, a sensory scene. Just dialogue doesn't cut it, the... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to identify whether a publisher is genuine or not? I agree with Mark Baker, and Chris Sunami. It sounds like a scam. We have an equivalent thing in Academia, unfortunately it IS common for scientific journals to charge authors for publication, and there are some out there (junk journals) that will take anything , including complete gibberish (that h... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: First or third person I don't think readers notice 3rd person view as another character observing the MC. I have read many books written in 3PL (3rd person limited; narrator only knows the thoughts and feelings of the MC, everything else is seen through the MC POV), and I recall scenes of masturbation, or celebration w... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What are the advantages and disavantages of different triggers for character transformation? A method like time of day is very constricting, and becomes more like a disability than an advantage. Consider werewolves that convert, like it or not, on the full moon. It has been used as a story advantage when the werewolf feels compelled to lock themselves up for the full moon, or usually does an... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Recounting events in dialogue Okay, first your example: In the middle of an argument it doesn't make sense for one person to stop and explain a lot of stuff, and for the other person to stop and listen. That is why your "succinctly, she told him why" doesn't work, the emotions of an argument are not conducive to patience, or mono... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is it a good idea to leave minor world details to the reader's imagination? > Is it a good idea to leave those things to the reader's imagination? No. This is not good writing, to compare something we know to something we don't know is backwards, at best the reader will mentally reverse it, and try to imagine a flower that looks like a nose, or gems that look like purple ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Resolving moral conflict You can resolve the conflict as you want, and either Character A does not break his vow, or he breaks it but realizes the vow was in error. Character B is a "a pompous, selfish, power hungry, narcissistic guy." Option 1: Find a way to make these flaws his downfall. He gets discredited, or in pu... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: As a discovery writer, how do I complete an unfinished novel (which has highly diverged from the original plot ) after a time-gap? As a discovery writer myself, I do not "plot", but I always write with an ending in mind. I do not WRITE the ending, but I have notes on how the story can be resolved, and I make sure my story will always fit that ending. Every time I finish a scene, I make sure I haven't done anything that will v... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Telephone Conversations Whatever the person is hearing is not included at all (unless it is on speakerphone), and whatever the person on the phone says is put down just like any other utterance, in quotes, not italicized, separate paragraphs, etc. If the POV character CAN hear the other side of the conversation, say on a s... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Would it be acceptable to write demonic possession as a form of rape? I think its a good idea, and it makes sense. Say a man is aware during an evil possession, and he sees the demon intentionally in front of a mirror, using his body to rape and torture the wife he loves, laughing in glee the whole time. He can't do anything about it, and he sees her, thinking it is hi... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to write characters doing illogical things in a believable way? You can't do just "dumb." You can write a mentally impaired character, like Lenny in "Of Mice and Men," that does dumb things that cause complications out of an inability to understand. Stephen King has a mentally impaired character (Tom Cullen) in "The Stand" and turns that mental impairment into a ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Creating a persona for cross niche marketing Why not just give yourself an alternate identity altogether? You can go register a DBA (Doing Business As, also called an "Assumed Name"), it becomes a legal name you can use, you can have separate email, web page, FB page, whatever. Google "filing a DBA in [state]". It would probably cost you less ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Should you only use colons and full stops in dialogues? For writing fiction, I don't use semicolons in dialogue (spoken or thoughts) and I don't use it in prose. That said, I am in Galastel's camp on other forms of punctuation indicating to the reader various lengths of pauses in a character's speech, or verbalized thoughts. sometimes to take a breath, o... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Can I conceal an antihero's insanity - and should I? I will agree with both Anna Fitgerald and Viktor Katzy: First, as Viktor says, I don't think saving the sociopathy for the end is a good idea, and Second, as Anna says, if the narrator knows her thoughts, I don't think you can hide it anyway. Where I differ is that the narrator doesn't have to ha... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Writing a love interest for my hero A love interest is not the only reason to risk life and limb. IRL there are many stories of people risking life and limb to save children, sometimes losing their life. In psychology there is a real phenomenon, primarily involving young adults in their teens or twenties, of taking insane risks to save... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Doubt about the double action of the concept of plot in fiction writing A story is characters facing a serious problem they must struggle to solve. That is my own definition, though it is simple enough others may have come to the same conclusion. The "plot" flows from there. Why do they struggle? Because the problem isn't easy for them. Why must they solve it? Because... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to write an inversion of a messianic trope? I would say the central problem in an anti-Messianic story is two-fold; in particular for a known religion like Christianity. First, you need a compelling lie; one that the people want to believe and even need to believe lest they lose hope in life and despair. I have a vague idea of how to do that,... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Leaving wiggling room for your characters while avoiding contradictions I am a discovery writer, I make 90% of the story up as I go along, so I do what you are doing (inventing background, thoughts, feelings, biases and attitudes, etc) constantly. However, anytime I do anything that might impact later actions -- say it helped create a conflict if my character hates bean... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Getting an editor after the second draft I wouldn't do it, speaking from experience. I paid for an edit long ago, on my first completed novel, and my editor did not do anything I couldn't have done with spellcheck and Grammarly (both free). As far as story analysis, it was uninspired, it said it was a good story, flowed well, and had no ma... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is there a better way to introduce acronyms through a dialogue? I agree with Mark Baker. If it is a real world acronym everybody knows, just use it. For real-world acronyms few people know, or made up acronyms, a common ploy used in fiction is to use the acronym in front of a novice character, that then tries to find out what it is. Perhaps using a search-engine,... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What makes an ending "happy"? The pragmatic "Hollywood" answer is a film has a happy ending if it leaves room for a sequel. Although Tony Stark dies, they did have sequels with him, and in this particular case, another Iron Man could arise (just like when 007 gets tired), or a prequel, etc. I get that "satisfied" is a squishy te... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How can I hint that my character isn't real? Another alternative is to have other characters question the existing of the friend, accuse the MC of making up stuff, and the imaginary character is never there when the MC could prove their existence. I have seen this cut in both directions; if the never-there character always has a very plausible... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How much sex can I write if I'm after mainstream success? I suspect your problem is a lack of story. Sex can be central to your story, but what stories are about is generally a problem the protagonist is compelled (or feels compelled) to solve. None of the stories you provide seem to fit the profile of a story. - MC's normal world (a virgin in love) - Inc... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |