Posts by Amadeus
As commonly understood, "gradually" and "greedily" suggest completely opposite paces. "Greedily" implies quickly, or with an urgency to complete the task. It just doesn't go with "gradually", it ca...
I have never tried for a group, for some of the "downside" reasons DPT outlined. I have found readers that enjoy my work, and aren't writers but avid fiction consumers. My rule for critique is basi...
This is an opinion question. My opinion is that people are generally given names. Some later decide to reject their given name, and name themselves, but for the most part it is their parents that d...
I don't know if it exists in your country, but as a graduate student in the USA, I once researched 3 years worth of newspaper headlines in four "national" papers (e.g. The New York Times), and I fo...
It is permissible, as long as it is obvious to the reader that is what happened. That said, personally, I put in a scene break, which I can be certain is obvious to the reader. Just three asterisk...
I agree with the answer by @motosubatsu, +1. What I would add is it seems you are not really writing a children's story, which just doesn't demand very challenging concepts for them. I think you ...
I agree with Klara. The strategy I often use is to devise a character that has both a superpower AND a significant weakness, and devise a plot in which her superpower is of very limited help, and t...
Yes, it is a cliché and yes you should probably avoid it. Even if you think it has happened in real life. In a way, it is implausible if they are BEST friends, that implies they have known each ot...
Yes, a citizen can investigate a murder. They don't have the tools of the police or courts, for example they can't force a store to release security tapes, or reveal employee records. But if they...
It doesn't hurt to have other characters react to him, the potential problem I see here is in repeatedly showing the same reaction, which is likely. Confusion, a sense Hadden is a rude jerk, etc. T...
It depends on who said "Move!". If it is the person sidestepping, then no. But then you should have written "Move!" I said, and immediately sidestepped him. if the person sidestepping is respondin...
... it does not make much sense to structure a mystery novel with alternating sequences of scenes and sequels which is composed of MRUs. I agree, I dislike this formulaic MRU theory, I don't t...
In general, the answer is no. There is no way to ensure that you will not be successfully sued for the theft of somebody else's intellectual property, violating copyright, and have to pay not only ...
I think they have to more than balance the scales, in the reader's eyes. Anytime a soldier kills an enemy combatant, she may be depriving a parent of their child, a child of their father, a wife o...
What are the dangers of painting a sympathetic view of the killer through the family of the killer’s perspective and in seeing the obvious interior dysfunction of the killer by seeing inside his m...
Write about the articles themselves. Do research and summarize them; they can't all be identical. Then you can say, with credit, John Smith puts this point best, in his article "What to Do and...
First, you need to identify what you personally consider "powerful" words, or poems, or sentences in fiction. Make a collection of the things you love. Once you have a collection of what impresses...
I DON'T think it is okay to introduce a second POV in what is basically the third act and approach to the climax of the story. I think that will throw readers. But the solution, as you are wonding...
Is there any way to do this without alienating the reader, who may well have invested significant time in the previous part of the story and feel cheated as a result? No. This violates common ...
The natural way of naming things is to use something unique about them that "everybody knows". For example, "linen" comes from the Latin word "linum" which is the ancient name given to the flax pla...
The reason, as you guessed, is marketing. One word that sums up something memorable about a movie is a mental handle, it can appear in far larger type on a billboard, it eats up only 1 second in a ...
In the ordinary text following the table I wrote "Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs)", but should I put a footnote also in the table? You could but I don't think it is necessary and I would...
As an academic myself, I write We submit our paper, "title of paper", for your review. In the end I think editors don't care or bias their treatment either way, they deal with numerous submi...
In this day and age should the definition / categorisation of erotica be revised? No. Erotica is a story intended to titillate, it is intended to aid imagination for the purpose of masturbatio...
Is publishing my story like this likely to be successful? I doubt it, I doubt enough Kindle readers would be interested. If by "published" on Kindle you mean sold on Kindle, I think you have a ma...
