Posts by Amadeus
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...
Describing scenery is much like describing people. IRL we never (effectively never) go through a long litany of what we see, not scenery, people, buildings or cars or interiors. Instead we get a g...
Some help is at my other answer: How firm is the 120 page limit on a screenplay. If you haven't sold a screenplay before, the more you exceed 120 pages the less likely you are to sell. That's just...
I do not have enough knowledge about the book-reading community as to what pleases them. What pleases them is what you see published and sell, they wouldn't buy it and read it if it did not p...
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...
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 ...
On the contrary, they do copy from each other, all the time. See this link On Contract Drafting and Plagiarism. The key paragraph there is this, I have highlighted the most important sentence: ...
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 h...
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.
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" ...
The lines should be interrupted. I open a random page in a best selling sci fi novel to find a dialogue, the author has whole paragraphs between utterances. Open Harry Potter to find a dialogue wit...
As often as needed. Remember novels like Roots [Alex Haley] that cross something like six generations of people, a few centuries of time. Then get compressed to a two-hour timeframe for the Movie!...
I'll offer a middle ground that requires a lot of polishing as I go. I write polished and readable story as I go. The only thing I would say is 'first-draft' is that I may postpone easy details th...
+1 Thomo. To expand, IRL two people do not stand still and stare at each other and spout dialog while only moving their mouths. Even if they are on the phone! They are doing something, thinking som...
Like Loren's solution; I just use a separate document in another window (click "Window" then "New Window") which I normally have minimized on the task bar. I use LibreOffice too, my approach is jus...
Yes, all writers are readers. It isn't clear what you are asking, however. We comment on other people's work all the time, particularly published work. If what you mean is why don't we review oth...
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...
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...
In first person (as Ken says) thought verbs are less necessary or unnecessary, but they can be crucial in third person and absolutely necessary. Mary knew Jack was lying, but she smiled anyway...
My exercise for this is forcing my imagination. First we must define the difference between showing and telling in a useful way for writing. Showing is writing that assists the reader's imaginati...
Speaking as a programmer, the solution to your problem is "don't be lazy." Taking screenshots is easy but risks libeling others: It can include their logo, their product picture, their address and...
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...
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...
I don't have a problem with '?!', I think people understand it, so it is fair game. I would have a problem with the interrobang ('‽'). If I ran across that in a book it would drop me out of my rea...
If the scene is supposed to be dramatic, a joke is out of place. Personally I did not find it funny, I thought it cliché. As a professional author and teacher, I am NOT in favor of the idea that ...
