Posts by Amadeus
A love interest is not the only reason to risk life and limb. IRL there are many stories of people risking life and limb to save children, sometimes losing their life. In psychology there is a real...
The easiest way to do this is have a character use it, and another character (like yourself, not knowing the word at that age) ask what it means, or look it up, or otherwise figure out what it mean...
What makes it good is a good use of sensory information that the reader can recognize, "a warm blanket on a cold night" is talking about a particular sensory feeling we can relate to. It has to b...
I would not call it a redemption arc, I could see this as simple revenge for somebody taking some piece of property he was enjoying. In a redemption, the character realizes they have been wrong an...
I disagree, they are better if they are not exclamatory. It is like saying "Spare me." in response to an unfunny joke. An exclamation point changes the meaning, it is intended to be bored cynicism...
As Mark says, not without a track record of one bestseller after another. But if you got that, you should be pretty rich, so why bother? Rowling and Stephen King probably don't worry about stuff li...
I think it is pretty easy, even as a true story. Pick your story, and try Intro, Complication, Try, Resolution. One or two sentences each. Here are two 80 word solutions. When I was ten, my all...
The abstract is a short description of the paper as a whole: e.g. with one or two sentences each: The specific area of interest your problem lies in The specific problem in that area your paper w...
I think the problem here (and the reason the OP feels it "tastes artificial") is too much coincidence: First, we have deer in the forest, but for some unexplained reason the dragon cannot find a ...
I don't think the "unauthenticated" part is necessary, but a legend is a story told about somebody else, a traditional story, and it can't be a "tradition" if it is being told for the first time by...
What he means is avoid lengthy preamble and explanation for a story setup, but really it is hard to understand "start as close to the end as possible" without understanding story structure in gener...
I don't think it is too much. Many characters have "double lies", and in a way one can block the other. You say the deep lie won't make your MC fail in action, but that isn't true: You say the MC c...
Why not just give yourself an alternate identity altogether? You can go register a DBA (Doing Business As, also called an "Assumed Name"), it becomes a legal name you can use, you can have separate...
I think people would not give much thought to it, particularly if no other characters gave much thought to it. On the other hand, if other characters are upset about this cross-species "mixed marr...
A story is characters facing a serious problem they must struggle to solve. That is my own definition, though it is simple enough others may have come to the same conclusion. The "plot" flows from...
I suspect your problem is a lack of story. Sex can be central to your story, but what stories are about is generally a problem the protagonist is compelled (or feels compelled) to solve. None of t...
The main aspect is tension. Read up on the Three Act Structure, or Save The Cat, which similarly shows the structure of screenplays. You have to introduce characters and their "normal world". Eve...
I wouldn't do it, speaking from experience. I paid for an edit long ago, on my first completed novel, and my editor did not do anything I couldn't have done with spellcheck and Grammarly (both free...
First, I am not a business lawyer, or tax attorney. The following are my understandings from being in business, do not rely on this as legal advice, and you should consult with a business lawyer or...
007 doesn't come off as a psychopath, but is singularly unafraid of death. In one movie he dives off a cliff, without a parachute, to intercept and land on the wings of a private plane. He's always...
If you want to self-publish, then probably you do need a site. If you intend to find an agent that finds you a publisher, then probably not. If anything, you can rely on your publisher to handle a...
That struck me as wrong; because since the character is experiencing it, for them the walls don't seem to be moving, they are moving. No, the word "seemed" is appropriate, if the character kno...
Sigh. Must agree with Galastel, again! You need tension, just a different kind of tension, or conflict. Even friendly disagreement, filled with laughter, represents tension. The laughter (or mourn...
Personally, I don't think there IS an internal monologue; irrational anger is all feeling and emotion, perhaps single words, and I would describe those, not try to transcribe those thoughts. The di...
I thought both The Bourne Identity and the beginning of the TV Series Blindspot did a decent job with amnesiac MCs. In both cases, the MC was obviously worried about their lack of memory, but also...
