Posts by Amadeus
In 3rd person limited, which you are writing it, it is perfectly valid to describe what somebody is feeling, like panic, or horror, or anger, or whatever. That includes pain. It seems like you feel...
My approach to that is, for letters to the POV character, do not forget that you have a human reading. Mechanically, I indent the letter like a quote. (Say your normal margins are 1-inch left, 1-i...
I believe you show, don't tell. This comes down to the design of the personalities involved. The older guy is the big problem. The boys in school can be just unaware of the law, or think (as many...
In addition to Galastel's answer, I would add the non-writing worry: People that know you, including your brother and family and possibly friends, may read your book and recognize you, themselves, ...
I would find this approach highly unrealistic. For one, those reel-to-reel tape drives do not EVER record sound; they are strictly digital. I worked with them extensively in the 1970's; for a time ...
I'd say if they (Q) were closed before, open them and give them a downvote, and if they get "enough" downvotes (3? 5?) close them. I would like the same for both Q and A. SE had a "review queue", o...
Yes, you can have both. In the Fugitive 1993 film Tommy Lee Jones is a Federal Marshall pursuing wrongly-convicted Harrison Ford, and Tommy Lee is pulling out every legal trick he can to catch Harr...
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...
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...
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...
Whatever language your readers speak, they expect your book to be "translated" into that language. I write in English for English speakers, I have written stories set in the ancient past where the...
Analysis obviously has to include objective news as the subject of the analysis, but it is not necessarily opinion. For example, News might quote the President, or a candidate. Analysis might take...
It doesn't make sense that something can be 50% eaten AND fleshless; if all that is left is bones, it is 100% eaten. It sounds like the girl is using the tool of necromancy to further her love of ...
I think there is a mixed use case. I think your Friend Frank can be smart enough to use formal addresses with Prince Peter if they might be overheard, and informal address when there seems no chanc...
I don't think you HAVE to give a trigger warning, but if you want to give one, give it like we do on movies or television shows, up front, before the story even starts. This fiction contains s...
I would go with characters have dead siblings; but that happens off-screen. Showing it on-screen, and in-period-realistic, might be off-putting itself. Everything you are talking about is a stati...
Dig until you discover what fundamental "truth" the bigot rejects. That will usually be the opposite of some fundamental "truth" you fully accept. Accept that people are rational. Reason proceeds ...
Even actors that play dead people in films get credit. A murdered hooker or mugging victim, for example, on a cop show. I am not sure about unnamed extras in a crowd scene, or shopping mall or stre...
You need to ask a lawyer. I am not a lawyer, but it is my understanding that in some States (of the USA) it is illegal to portray, even in simulation, animation or cartoon form, sexualized scenes o...
If the majority of readers don't get it, the dots are too far apart. Writing is like humor, in this respect. If the majority of your audience doesn't laugh at your jokes, then you aren't funny. F...
I have published several peer-reviewed scientific papers, also Master's Theses in two different disciplines and a long doctoral dissertation. Your proposed rule is not one I have ever followed, and...
Although I am a strong believer in the 3AS, you don't really need a 3AS in a character study, which is what you are doing: A work of fiction in which the delineation of the central character's pers...
