Posts by Amadeus
I would use a Foil. From the link: In fiction, a foil is a character who contrasts with another character, usually the protagonist, to highlight particular qualities of the other character. [.....
A deus ex machina actually does solve the problem. I can't tell, from what you have written in your question, if winning the lottery eventually does solve all her problems. If it does not immediat...
I would say that in writing, in particular, we shouldn't break the simple rules of grammar and spelling and many other basics. My reason for that is quite simple, if you writer "gramer, speling, n ...
In general, if you are going to be using magic or any non-scientific element, you need to introduce that very early in the first half of the first act, probably in the first pages of your story. T...
As a former university professor at one university, and now a full time research scientist at another, I would just add a footnote for any weeks in which the site was down. As a note, which is what...
Are major mystery subplot(s) in a fantasy story distracting or make a story more appealing? More appealing. Here is an examination of the structures of Harry Potter that concludes the first four ...
There are answers before mine; so I will only add that one other use of a poem or rhyming verse (which I did not see in those answers) is as a clue to some mystery. This can represent a riddle dire...
I'm not sure what a travel story is supposed to mean. A story has a problem for the MCs to solve, an answer to find, something to discover. Most of my stories involve travel and discovering new th...
Edited in response to OP's edit: I think it would be a mistake to tell them who, and I think it would be a mistake to go with an agent that is only prompted to read your full manuscript because an...
I think of an ellipsis as a moment in which emotion and feeling overwhelms narrative thought. That is how it is being used here, a pause for the narrator induced by internal sensation (desire) and ...
My approach (which I have taken) would be to abandon that story, think much more about Cindy the Vampire, and write a story in which she is the sole hero, and her anger and explosions end up having...
I would foreshadow the fundamental corruptibility of the hero first. He cheats at a game, gets caught, and is unrepentant. He chases and stops the robber of a rich man -- then demands half the loot...
I think the problem is that for somebody that doesn't care, Banshee gets awfully worked up about not caring, and this emphasizes an evil side, not a neutral side. I think you are trying too hard to...
I recall "Two Meatballs In The Italian Kitchen", by Pino Luongo and Mark Straussman. It was two chefs with different styles of Italian restaurants that got together for a cookbook. The basic prem...
I am not a lawyer, and this is a legal question. Read This Recent Answer of mine. The answer is (supported by a link to an attorney blog) the courts will look at the totality of your work. If they...
Can a banana ever be just a banana? Yes. I mention food in my writing, but not symbolically. In fact I almost never use any symbolism in my writing, at least not consciously. [Must I always be...
+1 to Hink, the elements are the same. They still follow the three-act structure. But often the "problem" facing the protagonists is ludicrous (a funny friendly alien needs help, the end of the w...
For me, a short story is a story. It follows the three-act structure, but it requires some inventiveness to compress that into a short space; in some cases to a line or two. I don't care about met...
You don't have to skip to the end. Just don't get repetitive. Skip over uneventful periods of time. Look for (I mean make up) the events, the things that have meaning in the course of the fight, in...
The narrator can describe only beauty, but that doesn't mean you can't have a mean and petty character that (in dialogue or perhaps thought) describes people in ugly terms. This doesn't have to be...
What criteria can I use to determine when to use words and when to use images? I think the criteria is simply real-estate. The empty box that would contain the photo or sketch. If you can describe...
I am a professor, I peer-review scientific articles; one or two per year, in fact I did one two weeks ago. The first things I look for are correctness and understandability, particularly in any ma...
It's a personal decision. For me, I wouldn't. I think your goal is to be a novel writer, not a non-fiction writer, not a research writer. Notes as you have them (or much less) is fine; at most I'd...
I'm a discovery writer, I don't name every character, or even every character with lines. Here's a waitress (I just made up) with two lines: The waitress approached, a smiling young girl that h...
I think chapter length matters, some of my readers have specifically complained about my chapters being uneven. Although I don't personally do this, I think some readers use chapters as a kind of p...
