Posts by Amadeus
The main thing to remember about critiquing somebody's writing is to not critique the person. What the piece is about is not a topic for criticism; what you think it says about the person that wrot...
Heroes Have Consequences. Heroes cause major changes, and every major change is likely to be negative for somebody, and often that person is an innocent. No matter what the setting, defeating evil...
I'd say, for a short book, pitch it as a young children's book. Imaginative and silly are great for that. Get rid of your trademark issue with Fruit Loops, come up with some other name that doesn't...
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 ...
You might be shooting yourself in the foot. This likely depends on high personal productivity of the author, and if you cannot sustain the pace, I think you will lose whatever audience you gather....
I think you see this all the time in "Previously on XYZ" segments of shows that have long plotlines (i.e. episodes are not self-contained). The only thing they recap is what you need to know for T...
I think it is important to write what your intended readers will easily understand. If you are a native speaker and inclined toward English-sounding words; they are probably inclined to understand ...
Prologues are usually boring, because they are almost inevitably history lessons that have no suspense or action and they feel like a history lesson, right after lunch, and a snooze fest. You woul...
I'd reject the advice to write to a sixth grade level, unless you are writing for kids or young-adults. I've seen the stats on reading levels in the USA somewhere; they must be online. But as I rec...
+1 user37826, that is my answer. I understand you are showing the +/- in the superscript and subscript, respectively, but I don't like this format at all; for one it doesn't give the confidence lev...
I would do this like names from the culture. Different languages have different characteristic sounds, rhythm, and accents. Although I don't speak Spanish, Italian, German, French, Arabic or Mandar...
I use a double-dash, and specifically a double-dash (not an em dash), on both sides of the interruption. The demon -- he? she? -- gestured toward the supply wagons. Although in your example, ...
Speaking as a research scientist, one major refinement you would need is rejection of your gods. In 400BC, Aristotle published his theory of gravity; based on the notion that objects were composed ...
To me, A writer's first target audience is themselves. When Stephen King was asked why he wrote horror, his reply was, "What makes you think I can write anything else?" The bulk of my fiction has ...
I don't believe there is any punctuation to accomplish what you want. I have seen it done as you have done it, but IMO this is effective but something that should be used very rarely; it gets tirin...
What keeps me motivated is I like writing for its own sake, it is my hobby, it can make me laugh, it makes me feel good to have figured things out, and for crafting a piece of art. Like other peopl...
I am not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice, but my understanding as an author is if somebody else can convince a jury that, for people that know the real person, the character in the book could...
It isn't science fiction, it is just Contemporary fiction, aka Realistic fiction. A Science Fiction story must rely heavily on some non-existing tech or some reasonably plausible guess at a futuri...
To me, uniqueness is not found in any one trait, but in the combinations of traits. You avoid writing a stereotype by acknowledging the stereotype exists, and then finding a natural way to subvert ...
I don't think the tag conveys the fact that there is violence, as Cyn's comment says, it sounds "old fashioned". From "Gentleman" and "Never Tells" my mind jumps to sexual trysts some woman must ...
It is acceptable, this kind of thing is done often in academic papers (to save space, there is often a page-limit in journal articles); but (B) is more clear than (A), that is probably why it was w...
In an action scene, short is better, and in a battle, people do not have time to reflect (unless they have magically fast thinking). IRL fight training, there is a strong emphasis on repetition to ...
You have to write it, completely, and 100% correctly. Further, you will not get anybody else to write it for you (unless you can pay them thousands of dollars). If they do the writing, you will ge...
Get your story straight! My goal is to introduce the reader to a ‘wonderful’ fantasy world with an underdog main character full of panache… How does a wonderful fantasy world produce an under...
Such speeches are an emotionally cathartic release for the character making them, therefore the rule is they are generally in the order of what is irritating them most about the person that sucks. ...
