Activity for Mark Bakerâ€
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edit | Post #277444 |
Post edited: |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #277444 | Initial revision | — | over 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: What is the main publishing format authors should be using today? The standard publishing route remains traditional print publishing. But the thing you have to realize is that publishing is not about printing, it is about marketing and distribution. It is about the ability of the publisher to create channels for books to reach readers. Whether the product that flow... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #277178 | Initial revision | — | over 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to ask for permission to use readers' endorsements? Write to them an ask. If they have reservations or wish to place limits on their endorsement, they will say so. Write because you want their reply in writing, should a dispute ever arise. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #277168 |
Post edited: |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #277168 | Initial revision | — | over 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: At what point does a POV character noting their surroundings go from showing/telling to an infodump? At the point at which the things they are noticing are not germane to the situation they are in. At any given moment, we take note of those things that are relevant to what we are doing or what is happening to us. Only in moments of complete repose to we look around idly and notice things for their o... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #277127 | Initial revision | — | over 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to keep track of worthwhile snippets from discovery writing, which don't work where they were first written? Stick them in a file called Snippets. This has one function and one function only: to make it easier to excise all the stuff that does not belong in your story. Tell yourself that this is good stuff and one day you will go and find a way to use it in something else. You won't, but that's okay. The po... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #276340 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Using accents while staying legible Don't fall into the trap of assuming that you have to act out how dialogue is spoken. Yes, some author do try indicate every nuance of sound in some character's speech, but most readers find it highly annoying. Fortunately you don't have to rely on acting it out. Your book has a narrator. You na... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #276313 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Is writing policy pages in a lighthearted manner harmful in any way? The up side is more people might read the policy. The down side is that people might not take the policy seriously. They might think you are mocking policy documents. If the policy is to mean anything, though, you may one day have to cite it in an enforcement action. Do you want to be citing a... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #276241 |
Post edited: |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #276241 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Dealing with Audience's expectations Audiences want contradictory things. They want to fall in love with a character, and once they fall in love with them, they don't want anything bad to happen to the person they love. But, of course, they also want excitement, adventure, peril, and woe, or else they will get bored because nothing ... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #276221 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Writing "light hearted" lead characters Let me suggest that lightheartedness is not a character trait but a response to circumstance. Let me suggest that a lighthearted character is one who expects to get the things they desire, and that a heavyhearted character is one who does not expect to get the things they desire. A man who goes c... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #276195 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
Rep score inflation What happened to the rep scores? They jumped by a bunch. (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #276172 |
Post edited: typos |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #276172 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Action scene pacing and clarity Well, there is usually not a lot of inner dialogue in the middle of a sword fight. The slow part of the brain that mulls over stuff switches off and the fast part of the brain the tries to not get stabbed takes over. So inner dialogue in a scene like this would generally be inappropriate. It would no... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #276127 |
@Prahara, yes. The snobbery around old money vs new is important to bear in mind, but we are dealing with a period of over 200 years of rapid social and economic change, so attitudes and practices certainly changed very much over the course of the period. You can certainly find whatever you need to s... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #276120 |
@DPT That was not my intention. The extreme character limits for comment for one to be more abrupt that one would like. My apologies. (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #276129 |
I'm not sure that it would be all that rare. It seems a likely part of the moral development of every individual to rebel against the moral failings of the parents, even if it is only their failing to meet the standards of their culture. But cultures are never monolithic. Consider St.Francis rebellio... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #276128 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: In a young adult, what would cause development of a high sense of duty? For your industrial revolution era character, the whole of their upbringing, education, and training would be designed to develop a high sense of duty in them. It is only after the first world war and Wilfrid Owen's scolding of his civilization that attitudes on duty start to change: >If you could... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #276127 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Could a 13-year-old have morality to disagree with their family's unethical business practices, while those are the norm in their society? Well, first, the scenario you posit is a bit unusual. During the Industrial Revolution (on which I did my MA many moons ago) many of the men who made their money in trade and industry at some point sold their companies to live like landed gentry. Landed gentry status was the desirable form of wealth ... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #276120 |
Lord of the Rings is a meditation on the nature of temptation. Every character of note is tempted in some way, and each responds differently. Tom Bombadil is the prelapsarian figure not tempted by the power of the Ring. (That is why he's important.) Everyone else is either corrupted by it, wise enoug... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #276120 |
This is the reckless young knight story and it occurs over and over again in literature down through the ages. The theme is romance vs discipline. It is a universal theme. Karate Kid. The Sword in the Stone. Star Wars. (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #276120 |
Luke's want is to be a hero. He's a dirt farmer on a dead end world. He's bored. Adventure calls, but he is naive, impatient, and romantic. He wants to rescue a princess. His need is for discipline, which he repeatedly resists -- at considerable cost. He finally submits himself to the discipline of t... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #276104 |
@ArtOfCode the tag works. Thanks. (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #276104 |
So where are these questions? I don't see them as new questions on the site. Or did they all get added by their creation date, and are thus buried deep in the list where no one will see them? How would we locate them if we were interested in reading them? (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #276107 |
Good point. You make me think that there is an even more specific point in the heroes journey that highlights the moral dilemma. It is the refusal of the call to adventure. Why does the character feel the call to adventure? There must be come moral imperative behind it. Why then do they initially ref... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #275961 |
Post edited: |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #275961 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can I pinpoint a story's moral dilemma? I think it is important to note that while there is often one particular moment where the choice is faced and made -- what James Scott Bell calls "the mirror moment", the choice may not necessarily come to a head in such an obvious dramatic way. Look for it rather in the forms of the opposing for... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #275954 |
Great analysis. I think something that this points to is that in a tragedy, the protagonist is offered a shot at redemption and refuses it. This means that there is no deflection in the onward course of their fall. The path does not bend the way it does in a heroic story. But the inflection point is ... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #275824 |
Post edited: |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #275824 |
Post edited: |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #275824 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Chapter 1 Problems Usually when someone says that they have a lot of ideas, they mean that they have a lot of plot ideas. The problem is, they don't understand the difference between a plot idea and a story idea. Giant ape climbs the Empire State Building is an plot idea. Great, now sit down and write a story the clima... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #75052 |
It isn't the war, it's the wound. It's the pain of the wound. It's the dysfunction of the wound, and its attendant frustration. It's the exclusion and the loss of sense of self that comes with the wound. Emotion is not geopolitical, it is personal. Stalin was not wrong. One death is a tragedy. A mill... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #75052 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to show powerful emotion in a character trying to hide it? While emotions do show on the face and in the movement of the body, those are not the major ways that we judge people's emotions in real life. In particular, they are not the principle means by which we judge the intensity of the emotion. Different people, after all, vary hugely in how expressive the... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #75050 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can I make a character sound condescending? The way you make a character sound condescending it to have them say condescending things. That's it. That's the whole of the recipe. But I suppose you knew that. I suppose you must have tried that and had a hard time pulling it off convincingly. So here is a guess as to why that might be. I'm... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |