Activity for Mark Bakerâ€
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: Why should I try to create realistic fantasy characters? All stories are morality plays. That is, they all deal with moral questions and moral choices. They may express very different moral viewpoints, but to make a satisfying story, they have to speak to the moral concerns, beliefs, or experiences of real readers. Because stories are fundamentally moral ... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Why do hardcover books retail for more than three times the cost of softcover books? Prices of goods have nothing to do with cost of production. They are entirely determined by what people will pay for them. Goods that cannot be produced for less than people will pay for them simply do not get made. Hardcovers are a case of market segmentation. You have rich consumers and you have p... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Describe a main character There are several techniques for doing this, as Lauren Ipsum illustrates, but consider that the first person narrator is also a character and how they narrate the story is part of how their character is formed in the story. So if the narrator describes their physical appearance, the fact that they ar... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Should I worry that my storyline is very similar to another? There are only a few basic storylines. Some say there are only seven basic plots in all fiction. What differentiates different works is the telling. If the telling of your work reminds people too strongly of the telling of another work it will seem derivative. But if the basic story structure does no... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Picking a place to start (In media res) I don't think in medias res should necessarily be understood as jumping into the middle of the story. I think we should look at it more as a story is embedded in a history. You may need to understand the history in order to understand the story, but the story itself -- the character's moral arc -- do... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Forming a strong relationship between 2 characters Relationships are contrived. They are contrived by the people in them. They are formed because one of the parties sets out, more or less deliberately, with more or less forethought, to create the relationship. In other words, relationships are the result of courtships. We are social creatures and we... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: What defines a Fairy Tale versus typical Fantasy? These are probably evolving terms rather than hard and fast divisions, but what I would say distinguishes fairy tales from fantasy is that a fairy tale is a tale about a human being encountering fairy folk, who represent a danger to ordinary human life. Fairies have been Disnified in recent years, bu... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Why would an agent request an exclusive submission? Because evaluating an author's work is expensive. It consumes time that could otherwise be spent finding other authors. That time is a dead loss if the author signs with another agent. In the end this is a matter of power. While the agent does work for that author, there are more authors looking for... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: How to write a death scene without making it overdramatic? The impact of any turning point in a story depends not on how the scene is written but on how invested the reader is, in how much they are hoping for or dreading or startled by the turning point. Over dramatic writing is the result of not having created the conditions in which the reader will react ... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: What to avoid when writing a villain? Avoid making him a caricature. Don't make him villainous simply by having him espouse a caricature of political ideas you oppose. Remember that no one thinks of themselves as a villain. He is a human being with an agenda that is opposed to, or incompatible with, the agenda of your hero. He has fully ... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Different types of "Flashbacks" I think we should distinguish between what I would call a personality flashback and a plot flashback. A plot flashback occurs when, for whatever reason, the narrative begins after the events of the story begin. A personality flashback occurs when there is an aspect of a character's personality that... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Using filler words like 'So', 'Anyway' I don't think soften is quite the right word for what these kinds of words do, nor is filler. I think of them as signal words. They indicate to the reader what direction the text is about to take. They are like the curve signs on the highway. The signs don't make the road curve. In this sense they do... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: What is the best way to learn technical writing? The key to good tech writing is not style. Style helps with clarity, and that is useful, but it is not enough. They key is to present the right information to enable a particular user, with a particular background and set of skills, to complete a task. The goal is correct action, not necessarily unde... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Plural of single letter variables I would say > as the two variables named c are not part of the same field. Even if technically acceptable, any form of cs is hard to read. Italics applied to only one letter, especially a round one like c are hard to spot. I changed "both" to "the two" because both invites the reader to consider t... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: How to make travel stories interesting? Travel stories are about the longing for something with a counterpoint of fear of the unknown and its dangers. To make your story interesting, find the object of longing and find the the source of peril. The longing and the peril may be great or small, but they are always at the heart of the story. ... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Why is having too many symbols a bad idea? The ring in LOTR is not a symbol. Because of the timing of its publication many took the ring to be a symbol for the bomb, but Tolkien denied this, and the history of composition makes it impossible. (Lewis talks about this a length in one of his essays.) A symbol is simply an idea or image that sta... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |