Activity for Mark Bakerâ€
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: Technical review process when using FrameMaker Long experience has taught many of us that when you send a busy person an email with more than one question, they only answer the first one and ignore the rest. Thus many of us have gotten into the habit of asking one question per email. You may be able to solve part of the problem by asking writers ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Why do readers enjoy reading about "bad" or evil characters? The virtuous transgressor is one of the oldest and most popular figures in literature. We find them everywhere from Robin Hood to Dirty Harry. How can a transgressor be virtuous? We all have basically the same attitude towards the law: it should constrain me as little as possible and other people as... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Can religions like Islam or Hinduism be represented respectfully in a fictionalized/fantastical Earth? The objection I think most people of faith have to their depiction in works of literature is not so much the author's lack of respect but the sheer ignorance of many writers about what people actually believe. I think this is true irrespective of genre. As a Catholic, I can tell you that the Catholi... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Larger structure - followup to Sense of Style by Steven Pinker It seems to me that what Pinker is describing at the sentence and paragraph level is substantially what most books on story are describing at the level of a document as a whole. Stories have a coherent shape and that shape has been mapped in various ways by different authors, but broadly the same sha... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: When should you convert a measurement in a local translation of a novel? It depends on whether you are using the local unit of measure for information or for atmosphere. If you use modern units in an historical setting (kilometers and grams in ancient Egypt, for instance, readers will know how large a quantity you are talking about, but it will sound completely out of pla... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Writing a Super Intelligent AI Surely it comes down to identifying what human quality your AI lacks. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Philip K Dick identifies that quality as empathy. He takes pains to illustrate the lack of empathy of his android characters. He does this by putting them in situations in which their lack of ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to break up dialog if some of the dialog is not in quotes? Despite the sources that ScottS cites, I believe this idea that you should use a new paragraph for a new person speaking is bogus. Paragraph rules are paragraph rules. You use a new paragraph for a new thought. A new person speaking is often a new thought, but not always. In particular, dialogue that... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Am I changing POVs if I'm describing what two or more characters are sensing (touch, smell, sound, etc.)? "Am I changing POVs if I'm describing what two or more characters are sensing". Not necessarily. If you are writing in what is awkwardly called "omniscient POV" then you can can tell what any number of characters are sensing without changing POV. Also, don't confuse POV with narrative first person. ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to describe 4 main characters at once without overloading the reader with information? By rewriting the book so that the four main characters are not introduced all at once. There is a good reason that most books introduce characters one at a time or two at a time (in the form of a conversation). Readers need time to integrate each character and form a distinct memory of them. This is... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How do you assess the value of an individual scene? The theory is bollocks. Here's why: the reader does not need any of it. A story is an entertainment. The reader needs food and water and oxygen and shelter and love. They don't need your novel. Readers read for pleasure. Any scene that gives pleasure is a good scene. However, a novel is a significa... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Should I write scared? You should write inspired. You should write in response to vision. Great work is work of great vision, work that sees what we ordinarily miss about human life. Tackling your vision may or may not be scary, but that is beside the point. If you have looked into the abyss, your vision may have terrified... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Putting code examples in BSC thesis Theoretical concepts are always difficult to understand without examples. Plus, the examples can provide evidence of the soundness of the concepts and generally increase the reader's confidence both in their understanding of the concepts and in the soundness of the concepts themselves. So yes, inclu... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: I feel like I'm plagiarizing my story? There are no new ideas. Everything has been done. Every plot device has been used a thousand times. Whatever you write it will use ideas that other writers have already used many times over. Plagiarism is representing someone else's work as your own. It is not using ideas that have been used before.... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Software to draw plot structure charts I think Dia, which is a general diagram editor, checks most or all of your boxes. http://dia-installer.de/ (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to get started as a freelancer? To make money as a freelance writer you have to have expertise in something other than writing. Anybody who tells you otherwise is blowing smoke. That can be expertise in addressing a particular audience for a particular purpose, such as an advertising copywriter or a PR disaster recovery specialist... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How should I respond to a supervisor/editor who thinks my technical writing is "too conversational?" There have been significant changes in technical communication style over the last 20 years, and particularly in the last five years as increasing volumes of evidence have shown that simple friendly language is both easier to understand and more respected by users. But it sounds like your supervisor... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How do I write LGBT characters without looking like I'm trying to be politically correct? Well, first, you cannot write about any politically charged issue without being read as taking sides. If you are ideologically aligned with one side, the other will throw rocks through your window. If you are not ideologically aligned with either side, both sides will throw rocks through your window.... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is Wikipedia Trustworthy? No information source is entirely trustworthy. But for purposes of citation, we need to distinguish three kinds of information: evidence, interpretation, and reporting. Evidence is the original data. Interpretation is what something thinks the original data, or a collection of data means. Reportin... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to get valuable feedback on the quality of my storytelling? I love critique groups. I have belonged to a number of them. I have good friends I met because of them. But if you are concerned about your storytelling, it is vital to realize what they can and can't do for you in regards to storytelling. To state it briefly, they can't help you with your story, but... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is it okay if I wrote a story based on true historical events? Historical fiction based on real events is a huge part of the genre of historical fiction. In fact, the taste today seems to be for stories that are as close to historical events as possible, with authors often basing their stories on one particular character (famous or otherwise) and often including... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Are there agents or representatives who only specialize in book promotion and not distribution? You really can't separate credibility from reach. Credibility is reach. Credibility gets a message attention. Credibility gets a message passed on. A traditional publisher is not the only source of credibility today, but they are still a huge one. The credibility that a traditional publisher brings w... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to best pace information reveals to the reader I think it is a mistake to think of your story as a set of reveals. A story has a shape and the reader remains interested if they sense that the story is making progress. Tension is not created by mysteries but by anticipation. Consider a romance. We all know what the resolution will be. We all know ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Writing an "honest" Blurb? As has been noted before in relation to several questions on genre, a genre is a promise to the reader of a certain kind of literary pleasure. A blurb is essentially an expansion on that promise. It indicates a little more of the particular flavor of the work within its genre. Because a blurb is an ... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: "Real people don't make good fictional characters". Really true? It very much depends on what you mean by "real people". You can, of course, make people from history into characters in fiction, as writers of historical novels do, and you can base characters on people you know, as Kerouac based Dean Moriarty on Neal Cassidy . In that sense you clearly can base char... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Pretty flowers with clunky Latin names The average western reader would not know the difference if you told them that your heroes rested in the shade of a rhubarb tree or tied their horse to a gigantic parsley. Even western works that talk about people walking through a grove of ash or poplar only evoke a vague sense of woodsiness in the... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Is First person perspective more intimate than Third person perspective? First person narratives are not inherently more intimate. You can achieve intimacy or distance in any narrative mode. But in some ways first person can actually diminish intimacy. But first we have to ask what we mean by intimacy. It could mean any of the following: - Knowing more about the charact... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Where's the middle ground between genre conventions and originality? Stories are inhabited by archetypes. That does not seem to be a choice. It seems to be what the human psyche craves. One has to ask, after all, why we like stories at all. We can suggest some practical purposes that stories serve, but for the most part they are simply entertainments, and it is very ... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: How do you tell a character's backstory without explicitly telling it? This is another version of this question: Intentionally leaving out a part of the story, for a more interesting reveal? In other words, it is a how do I tell something given that I have chosen a narrative point of view that is not suitable to telling it. The answer is, you don't. In the default na... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Intentionally leaving out a part of the story, for a more interesting reveal? A story has to be interesting all the way through. There are many cases of authors withholding information that could be given earlier in order to create a big reveal later. But it has to be done in a way that does not make a big chunk of the story leading up to the reveal boring or frustrating. The... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: A question on the ambiguity of the Alternate History genre Everything in a story has to matter. If you write alternate history, the alternate has to matter to the story. If you put in a detail that is obviously and deliberately contrary to history (as opposed to an accidental anachronism, which you will find in many books if you look hard enough) then it is ... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Intentionally writing a Deus Ex Machina? If you could remove that plot point and the story would remain the same, then it is not a deux ex machina. It is only deus ex machina if the entire resolution of the plot depends on an intervention of some force entirely outside of everything that has happened in the story before. In other words, it ... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: How do you make the reader root for the protagonist when the primary antagonist is more relatable and more likable? Be careful not to confuse the concept of protagonist with the concept of good guy or even hero. Protagonist simply means the main character of the story. Similarly, antagonist does not mean bad guy or villain, it simply means the person opposed to the protagonist. There is nothing at all to say that... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Is it a good idea to make the protagonist unlikable while making the supporting characters more likable? It is not and never has been about making the protagonist likable. It has always been about making them recognizable. If you want a great example of an unlikable protagonist, try Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. Pinky is in no way likable and in no way moral. He is, however, recognizably human. When p... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: How unadvisable is it to flip the protagonist into a villain? The good character who turns bad is a classic feature of literature. It is the essence of the literary form we call tragedy. Thus Macbeth opens with high praise for the virtuous Macbeth: SOLDIER. Doubtful it stood; As two spent swimmers that do cling together And choke their art. The merciless... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Is it a deus ex machina if the alternative is illogical? I think you have to look at DXM this way: the resolution of the hero's arc has to be merited. The hero can merit their solution by achieving it by their own actions. But they can also merit it by deserving the help that has been provided to them. A classic case is Androcles and the Lion. Androcles i... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: How do I get my readers through the early, "hardship" part of my fiction? "The purpose of the book is to convince..." That is likely the source of your problem right there. If a book is didactic or polemical in nature, it is generally only of interest to those who support that message and only of interest to them while it is actually preaching that message. A book can cer... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: What type of character should I write about first in a potential series of books? Start by writing about a character into whom you have the most insight, about whom you have the most to say. Art is about vision. It is about seeing what others do not see and transforming it into words so that they can see it. This is not as highfalutin as it may sound. A character becomes compelli... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Does my protagonist *have* to succeed? No, your protagonist does not have to succeed. Your protagonist has to arrive at some difficult choice and make a choice that the reader finds emotionally or morally satisfying. That does not mean that they have to win the fight with the antagonist, either immediately or in the future. Sometimes the ... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Resources to find editors of magazines and newspapers? You don't find them. They are hiding from people like you. And from people like me. You might as well announce that you have decided you want to play professional baseball and want to get the names of scouts for the Yankees. It does not work that way. You have to start at the bottom and work your way... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Would George Orwell get hired in today's expert climate? There is now and always has been a front door and a back door to every profession that is not government regulated. The front door is generally to go to school, get the appropriate qualifications, send in your resume, and hope for the best. The back door is to know someone, to have a friend who know... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Is it discouraged to format a list of items vertically? It depends on the context. In technical writing, using the list format is generally preferred. In a novel, you would always keep the list inline. In popular non-fiction you will find both styles used. There are some markup language that will allow you to enter a list as a substructure within a parag... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: No Contractions This rule is because it is easier to impose simple rules than to inculcate good taste. In real life, try to develop good taste by reading excellent examples with attention. In class, do what you are told so you can get good marks, graduate, get a good job, and be able to afford to buy good books whic... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Structure for software documentation: long vs short pages I wrote a whole book on this subject. It is called Every Page is Page One: Topic Based Writing for Technical Communication and the Web. In it I look at the research on how people use technical information and how the web changes how we use information generally and come up with seven principles for t... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: What is the spectrum of 'disasters' in 'scene-sequel?" Well, not specific to the scene-sequel model (for which I would harbour deep suspicion) but in literary terms I would say as disaster is an irreparable loss. A loss you can recover from, from which you can be made whole, is not a disaster, it is an inconvenience. A disaster forces a permanent change ... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Stories with multiple possible interpretations: do you plan for it? No matter how hard you try to make sure that there is only one possible interpretation of your story, people will interpret it in different ways according to their experience, ideology, and circumstances. You don't need to plan for multiple interpretations; you are going to get them whether you like ... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Character, plot, and setting conflicts My pet theory on this is that all story conflict is moral. That is, it is a conflict between values. If a big pile of rocks falls on the road and our hero picks them up one by one and moves them out of the way, that is landscaping, not story. If a big pile of rocks falls on the road and our hero st... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Sorkin: "Dialog is music" - In what way(s)? I don't pretend to be able to interpret Sorkin on this, but I would make this point: When we write, we have punctuation to break sentences into meaningful phrases. In speech, unless you are Victor Borge, you do not. And in writing, if the reader does not get the meaning of the sentence the first time... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: How to write a 'fish out of water' character? Well, the best way to introduce a reader to a world is to describe it to them. It worked for Tolkien. It worked for Rowling. It can work for you. The best way to make a fish out of water character convincing is to have a very good reason why they are out of water, and either show them working as har... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: How can I manage screen shots and other graphics for maintenance? For the book I am currently writing, which is not written in docbook directly but is written in a markup that will be translated to DocBook for publishing, I use an XML file to capture metadata for each illustration. assemble.svg assemble.svg 4.25in... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Can your narrator talk to the reader of the novel? Of course the narrator can talk to the reader. That is their job. It is what narrator means. I suspect what you are really asking is, can the narrator comment on the action? Again, the answer is that of course they can. This was pretty much the way every novelist wrote until very recently, and the w... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |