Posts by Amadeus
I'm not a lawyer so I will preface this with saying the following is my opinion of what it means: The law reads literally, and I think NO you don't lose all rights, but you are granting them unlimi...
I think you could take this as a seat of the pants issue, and just be a discovery writer. Write your book. Keep your notes, as you have, disconnected or not. Do not focus on the future until your s...
Writing an article (or book) in somebody else's name is called "ghostwriting". Typically ghost writers agree under contract to remain anonymous. If you have no such agreement with your sister, and...
Names of characters are typically protected by copyright. (I say typically because some very generic names used in many works, like "John Doe", are not attributable to any single original work). ...
Showing instead of telling means showing the consequences of a character state (anger, anxiety, love, worry, hate, etc) instead of labeling the state. "Steam coming out of her ears" is a cliché, o...
Yes you should. If it is truly non-linear, you should use years: 1997, 2020, 1983, etc. Do not count on your viewers/readers to be able to add and subtract from the current year being shown, in the...
You are telling and should not be. "Show don't tell" comes from the film industry and their need to restrict dialogue, for many valid reasons of verisimilitude. So nobody should say "I am angry," ...
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 ...
I suggest writing it with all the detail you can muster, then returning to it cold and rewriting to delete repetitiveness and all the detail you can stand to give up. Remember these passages are l...
In my current story, a kind of spy girl has name A, but at various times goes by B, C, D, and E. I always refer to her as A in prose, and other characters call her by whatever alias she is using at...
Your editor sounds like an idiot and non-professional. If all characters wear hoodies as part of their costume, are they all always sneaking? What is the difference between a hoodie and a Halloween...
I do it. In my current writing project, which I started some months ago, I had this image in my head that at the end of ACT I, character A was going to seek out character B for some help. The twist...
Do writing groups become tunnel-visioned ... and come with their own set of biases? I believe they do, just as part of human nature. There are many studies on this regarding the outcome of foc...
Your writing may sound like somebody else's. When I began, I actually analyzed the writing of my favorite authors. Not just for the basics of punctuation; but sentence length and structure. Dialogu...
First, congratulations on sticking with it so far. Let's try to fix some stuff. ... the more the reader knows about him, the more they will care about his death, and thus his death being a grea...
I know you have already accepted Mark's answer, but here is an idea, from a writer that starts with rather vague story plans: While you are in love with your idea, write down what you love about i...
Given the reason you gave up, I'd say continue with the same story. I would regard depression as an illness or at least similar to a car accident. I have never been disabled by such a thing, but if...
You may have story problems, too. As Mark says (I have to say that a lot) she needs to want something, bad. You say she is "quite determined" but mousy: She can be usually mousy, but when it comes ...
This is a case of "show don't tell", or for those that frown upon that phrase, I mean write about the effects of the fear. Fear reactions tend to be summarized in "flight or fight", which is a nic...
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 n...
A t-shirt is a short-sleeved pullover shirt. A chemise (a term still used) is a short-sleeved pullover dress, like a nightgown. Robes are full or half sleeved garments, typically open in front and ...
The secret to writing is rewriting. If you aspire to math and computer science, try thinking like a scientist. (I am a research scientist using both math and computer science). A story is much lik...
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...
I take the "show don't tell" maxim to deal primarily with how my characters feel, or the content of their personality, and to mean "write about effects and manifestations, do not just state such th...
By "transfer" I presume you mean transition, leaving the beginning of the story in first person, and just start writing in 3rd. That's going to seem weird, I wouldn't do it. Rewrite from third per...
