Posts by Amadeus
Unhappiness, frustration, powerlessness at home or in life. Some bullies are sexually excited by power. Others enjoy hurting people as a kind of revenge against someone or some situation hurting th...
The Warming of A Cold Still Heart or New Light For a Dark Heart
My advice is to try and act out the parts, actually say the lines, make the movements, and so on. If necessary, use cardboard boxes or other cheap stuff (empty aluminum cans as wine glasses or a la...
You do it as you did, they just need to be short and pithy enough that people get what they are; slang or shorthand for something ridiculous or over the top. I would read them out loud (in my studi...
No, "dramatic" means you show only actions, you do not describe anybody's thoughts or feelings. It is related to movies/TV/Plays in that on screen you only see acting, (other than rare exceptions)...
I think it is fine and reads well, however, I do not ever break the rules of breaking :-) I don't embed dialogue or italicized thought in exposition. No! I'm not a dengenerate! should appear as a ...
Why is the character black? This Wiki contains a chart, based on the US Census bureau and self-identified race, that shows 72.4% of Americans identify as White alone, and 12.6% of Americans identi...
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 exposi...
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 ass...
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...
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 ...
Relatibility is more like understanding why people are doing what they are doing. Consider the movie franchise for Taken: the hero kills dozens of people without mercy. But we understand why, they ...
Although it IS okay to end a side story as soon as a character is killed off; it is NOT appropriate (i.e. seen as good writing by readers) to end a story without resolution of the character's arc. ...
To elicit emotions, you have to have emotions. That is actually a problem for some people; they (by nature or upbringing or both) remain analytical or cynical about most things. They don't get very...
Who is laughing? Just you, at suckering your readers into caring about a character? Maybe this is not how you read, but most readers are making an investment of time and emotional energy in imagin...
A trope is a cliché setup; of any kind, that audiences have come to expect. An example in a commercial is the great looking guy catching sight of a jaw-dropping girl, dropping everything to approa...
If I am limited to Writing and Setting as you describe them, I have to choose Writing. Because I think a fine story can be written in an unsurprising setting, about lawyers, or love, or comedy, or...
Stop making him passive, and make him a hero. He doesn't "go to visit his sister," he learns about his sister's trouble and affliction, and drops what he is doing to go save her. He doesn't "mee...
To me the structure is fine, but your POV character definitely needs an arc, and a goal, These trips should have an arc that mirrors hers. My example, off the top of my head: She may, on the firs...
I believe you should only include angles if they are actually important to the plot; not if they are "artistic." If you need to show a bee flying up Mark's nose, perhaps. But even then, aren't you ...
+1 Daniel, I'm on board with that. Set an appointment and write. If you are worrying about other things: Write about them. Write what is in your head. If you worry about them every day, write them...
I am a discovery writer (aka pantser, but I dislike that term). You can see my approach to starting a novel in this answer to a different question. I'd also recommend this other answer that talks a...
I was taught (long ago) to use three centered "---" on a line by itself in order to represent, within a chapter, a scene change or the passage of time. e.g. if somebody falls asleep; then "---", th...
I probably use attribution other than he/she about 10% of the time, I intentionally try to write without it, and upon re-reading I look to see if anything I wrote is ambiguous, if a reader followin...
I think you are confused about "originality". Every super-spy movie is "original", but the plot is the same. Nearly every romantic comedy is original, but the plot is pretty formulaic. What is ori...
