Posts by Amadeus
It's not a bad idea, especially across books. Consider a story like Roots, incredibly successful, but it has to cover a few centuries! Obviously that story has to change POV characters all the dam...
I'd never write scared (of either variety). I might write something challenging, but not scared. I would include in the "not scared" category, being unafraid to rewrite, unafraid to cut large pas...
I am not a lawyer, but do business with copyright law, and this is my understanding. First, it IS possible to copyright characters in other works. Here is an excerpt from Protection of Fictional ...
If they haven't asked me to read it, or tell them what I think, I would do nothing at all. Given any opportunity that qualifies as an "ask", I would be truthful. I would not pretend to be any more...
How do I write LGBT characters without looking like I'm trying to be politically correct? Don't Try. Do. Actually BE "politically correct." "Politically Correct" is originally (and in my view...
Yes, author's do this all the time. One of the books I use frequently is The Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook", it lists 25,000 first and last names and their meanings from around the wo...
I don't have this problem in my writing, but this would be my suggestion: If they are not distinguished by gender, then you need a general term any random person. I would latch onto something they ...
Tell the truth about the whole story. For example: Alex trained under the legendary robot general. If her warrior body wasn't proof enough, her skill in tracking the general across the Gap was ...
+1 Secespitus. However, I never use any name I don't think my reader would understand, especially not a name derived from the discoverer or a person being honored; those real-life people do not e...
I think a story can work fine this way. Cinderella is helped by a fairy godmother at her crisis point in the story, that pretty much appears once in the story. Many mystery / adventure / mission s...
Is it possible to make a sympathetic and likable character that has this flaw? Perhaps, it depends on the type of racism and how you balance it. In modern culture overt racism and race-hatred...
Yes, I would consider this a DxM. To me, a DxM is any logically unjustified outcome, and this twist is not logical. I won't talk about how to fix it or how to write, just what makes me think so: ...
Conflict and Action. It doesn't make a difference what your character does, really, as long as she is in conflict in every scene, small or large. From disagreements with friends or enemies to figh...
how should I start the story? This is obviously a matter of opinion, the story I would write may be far different than the story you want to write. So this is basically how I would start such a st...
Your hero does not have to achieve their goal, but (IMO) for a YA novel, they must achieve something of note. Luke Skywalker did not kill Vader (in the first movie) but destroyed the Death Star and...
I would find this twist unsatisfying, a deus ex machina (coming out of nowhere) that invalidated the whole story (it was all just a dream...). I also think you wrote yourself into a corner! I sus...
I think Orwell would still succeed. For one, a century ago there were simply fewer qualifications to be had; and there has been massive "education inflation" since then; in the USA the number of B...
This is a useful book, Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook. Each name comes with its original translation of meaning (although some are just 'mythical mother of Jason', or a few per page 'u...
It should be easy for you to divide your book into scenes, a continuous segment of time in which your characters interact. By this definition, it is still a scene if it is in multiple locations, I ...
Is there like a rule of thumb for these things? Three! I will take "rule of thumb" as meaning a rough measure that does not apply in all situations. It is actually hard for people to keep v...
I personally would NOT recommend writing a second book while revising the first. It is important to keep the first book in your head as a whole, a second book in my head would result in a jumbled a...
I agree with wetcircuit, this is a deus ex machina. I don't think it will help to show them more often, in the end they save the day and they are your heroes, not your MC. The hero is the one th...
Create some conflict between the character hearing it and the character telling it. Don't just infodump the history. The exact nature of the conflict depends upon the relationship of the character...
You say "the first quarter of the story". That is close enough to ACT I, the setup, and it ends with a crisis that propels the character into ACT II, in your case, capture by the government. You ar...
A significant scene in the novel occurs after ... Or A significant scene in the novel takes place after ... Or A significant scene in the novel follows [the previous reference acti...
