Posts by Amadeus
The way you've set it up, with C being a trusting character, if you want the Reader to know something is up, you find a sweet spot of them saying something that most Readers would get, but C does n...
To me, the recognition of an actual fault is specific, I can point to exactly what is wrong and state exactly why it is wrong. While self-doubt, for me, is generally vague. e.g. What if this is lik...
On SE, as we write our answers the formatted text appears below it; a what-you-see-is-what-you-get image. That helps me, at least, tell if I have unclosed Bold or Italics, if my links are working,...
The "Why" is that we want the MC (Main Character, or Main Crew) to undergo some sort of struggle in order to get from the end of the Act I to the beginning of Act III. Because that is what makes th...
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...
It's too long, and it's filled with squishy prescriptions. Yes, we won't tolerate harassment. But I think it is a mistake to try and define every possible form of harassment. Make it a law of int...
Usually "and" is indeed dispensable and the fact that you wrote it is a clue to check if it is. Using that sentence as an example, I can eliminate "and" with a semicolon, or a period. Usually "...
I think Writer's Block occurs differently for different writers. For myself, the main cause of Writer's Block is in what I've already written; somehow it prevents me from writing the next scene, wi...
In this answer, I am going to explain to you why you shouldn't announce what you are about to write anyway. It is boring and redundant and a waste of real estate on the page. Start with a claim, ...
I am not a lawyer, but in general words are copyrighted; ideas are not. The context doesn't really matter too much, if the words are unique and convey the same idea for a different topic (which the...
There were multiple proper courses of action. 1) Refuse to let him publish it under your name, and retract permission to use the paragraphs you wrote. You did not write it, it was a first person n...
Stephen King, in a live interview, was asked "What advice do you have for people that want to write?" His answer (I am repeating from memory) was: "They should write. But I have to tell you, most ...
Is "my" and "me" prohibited? I stood up and began to walk across the room. She turned away at my approach. My urge was to comfort her. Standing up and walking across the room, she turned a...
I am a discovery writer. The main and broad definition is that a discovery writer does not outline stories beat by beat, or chapter by chapter, or even Act by Act. The reason for this, as I found ...
You need a motivation, insanity is not a motivation. What you are proposing will break the suspension of disbelief. Does the character think it is funny? Do they have a grudge and just want to pas...
There is also a genre called "Science Fantasy", also "Hard Fantasy" (borrowing from "Hard Science Fiction", which doesn't break any laws of physics) and of course just plain "Science Fiction". The...
Within the figure description itself, just use (i), (ii), (iii), etc.or (A), (B), (C), (D) to save space. In the text of your paper, refer to Figure 2(i), Figure 2(ii), or Figure 2(A), Figure 2(B...
I am a discovery writer, I have been for many years, and I complete stories. Scrap your outline. Most discovery writers (including me) have struggled with what you are talking about; finding the ...
Writing is judged both objectively and subjectively. Bad grammar, bad spelling, generic labels, clichés, etc can be objectively identified. Long passages of uninterrupted dialog can be objectively...
First, I would always presume if you "put a book aside" to work on another book, your book is dead. In my experience (with only myself and a few authors I have spoken with), putting a book in the d...
This is an opinion question. My opinion is that people are generally given names. Some later decide to reject their given name, and name themselves, but for the most part it is their parents that d...
I don't know if it exists in your country, but as a graduate student in the USA, I once researched 3 years worth of newspaper headlines in four "national" papers (e.g. The New York Times), and I fo...
It is permissible, as long as it is obvious to the reader that is what happened. That said, personally, I put in a scene break, which I can be certain is obvious to the reader. Just three asterisk...
Since your book is about a young girl coming to understand the world they way it is (which sounds much like a coming-of-age story for a teen or pre-teen, or perhaps a coming-to-adulthood story for ...
I agree with the answer by @motosubatsu, +1. What I would add is it seems you are not really writing a children's story, which just doesn't demand very challenging concepts for them. I think you ...
