Posts by Amadeus
The technical term I have heard in writing is resonance. In psychology, we would call it priming of the audience. As you say, it isn't exactly foreshadowing, but it puts an image into the reader/v...
Why this is difficult. Jealousy is a natural trait, nearly everyone that falls in love is subject to it at some time. The reason is that the extremely high emotional value of the love interest cre...
+1, Wetcircuit, though I will disagree on the Buffy angle; she is right on the misdirection. This is difficult to pull off. The way I would do it is a little "close up magic"; you have to write fr...
You could play them as opposites. He hardly talks at all, she talks enough for both of them! She is not unaware or oblivious to him, but she just chatters along, asking him questions that he doesn...
In your particular circumstance: No. That is not normal. If I am given something to provide feedback, then I will read it all; OR I will read it all until I have seen enough to not bother reading ...
First, good for you, it is a good sign that you aren't feeling compelled to describe characters. To me, physical descriptions stalls the story, it is a lot of "telling", not showing. I always avoi...
I used cleaned up speech; but I only use words I have actually heard people use in casual speech (or at least feel like I have heard used). I think the trick is to stick with things real people sa...
I have both a resume and a CV; I am a research scientist with a PhD and two Master's degrees. Both a resume and a CV are telling a prospective employer what you can do for them, and how you can be...
+1 DPT, yes your characters should be interacting with the setting. If the "entire thing could have been a phone call", I'd say you have a problem with the dialogue, and the character emotions. D...
I've been a professional programmer for 40 years, I've written everything from operating systems to business app code to games, and I never use an exclamation point in business or OS code. Ever. No...
+1 Galastel; I would say one way to approach an answer to her question, "What is the meaning of your story", is to ask yourself What do my characters learn? Deep stories, at least by my definition...
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...
Make Beowulf more complex, which was your goal anyway. Consider Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) on NCIS. The ultimate cop: But he isn't. When his wife and child were murdered by a drug dealer, and the ...
Mike's career is over either way, and his choice is selfish and self-centered. If he can hack the SETEV, hack it in a way that forces the rest of the crew off it, then steal it, so he is the ONLY ...
Switch the bravery. For this scene, her love interest is the brave one. As always, create a conflict between them. First draft of a long example: Marcie heard something, a gasp, and moved to th...
Being upfront is about telling the truth, and unwilling to tell a white lie to preserve somebody's feelings. Being a jerk is about being selfish and uncaring. They don't give a shit about anybody...
As Galastel says (+1), your character needs to be involved and want something connected to the problem. If the empire has become an engine of conquest, perhaps your character is in danger of bein...
I think the tropes are galloping horse, convenient boarding point, leaping from horse to train (and horse then veering off), a harrowing dangerous trip across the top of the train to get to the eng...
Although I personally have no problem either writing or reading explicit sex scenes (sex is a form of entertainment, after all), if you feel constrained by your distribution options, I would make t...
I think of cuss words in my writing like spices. I don't want hot sauce on everything, and I don't want my carrot cake doused in Habanero Death Spiral. If you use them too liberally, then like spi...
I would put it as chapter 1, subtitle, "The beginning of the end", or "The seeds of destruction" or something that makes the reader realize it is important and necessary reading. I prefer to move ...
Consider the Self the axiomatic being. An axiom, in science, is something we take as self-evidently true. It is axiomatic that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line: It needs...
The thing is, readers don't care about non-human perspectives, If you believe that, then why in the world would they buy your next three books? You have essentially told us that, you believe ...
In most technology books, a chapter tackles a single subject in depth. For example, "looping" in a language, the FOR loop; WHILE loop, DO WHILE, DO UNTIL, etc. In beginner books, syntax and the r...
A person acting out of charity or selflessness is aiming to help somebody more than they help themselves, and would take such an act even if nobody knew they did. Just recently viewing news of Hurr...
