Activity for Mark Bakerâ€
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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A: What Kind of Story can Achieve Cult Status? If you don't think Pride and Prejudice has cult status, you are looking in the wrong place. It's cultists are called Janeites. And I think you may be overestimating the staying power of Star Wars and Star Trek. They are now brands more than they are art, and the ordinariness of the latest entries in... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How to copyright my works in India? Copyright is automatic. If you write something, you own the copyright on it. If you write something for hire, the person who hires you owns the copyright on it. Certain jurisdictions may provide a means to register your copyright, but that is not required. You own the copyright the moment you create ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How many metaphors? 47. Not seriously, no. You really should not be thinking about metaphors. Metaphors are very much an ordinary part of speech. You probably use them all the time without realizing or thinking about it. As non-physical objects, metaphors can't actually be placed in heaps. Heaps of metaphors is a ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: I've got too many flashbacks I haven't read your samples because we don't do critiques. But there is a general question here that may be of use to other people. If you have too many flashbacks, it it probably a structural problem. Some of the possible causes are: 1. You have started the story in the wrong place. An anxiety to ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How to imply the opposite of the truth To paraphrase your question slightly, "How do your lie to the reader?" Answer: you probably shouldn't. Once the reader distrusts you, it becomes impossible to achieve any effect at all. What you are trying to do here to to create what I call artificial suspense. Real suspense is based on what the c... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: What do you do to prevent dips during which you're not writing anything? What you are experiencing is the natural rhythm of human productivity. There are even techniques designed to help you optimize the use of this rhythm. One is called the Pomodoro technique in which you use a kitchen timer to time your work sessions and breaks. I think the mechanical nature of the Pom... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: What to do with 'blank' chapters? You are not writing a history, where you are obliged to fill in the details of all the day, months, and years that pass. You are writing a story. You are obliged to write only those incidents that build the arc of the story. If nothing happens that builds the arc of the story for a day, a month, a ye... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Is my story a rip-off? There are no original story ideas. It has all been done before. Any originality lies in the telling, not in the story idea. And, the publishing industry cares about originality about as much as the pizza industry does. Most customers do not want an original pizza. They want the same pizza they alway... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Longer or shorter chapters? This is really all about cadence. You break up a text, at various levels, as an expression of its cadence. A slower cadence tends to express itself in longer sentences, longer paragraphs, longer chapters. A faster cadence tends to express itself in shorter sentences, shorter paragraphs, shorter chapt... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How is a dialog interruption actually shown? Standard punctuation for an incomplete sentence is ellipsis. But don't. Don't have one character interrupt another at all. Dialogue is not speech and the page is not the screen. The page is an asynchronous media. Events do not unfold in real time but in read time. It can take far longer to read the... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: What English version of the bible should I quote from? First, the KJV is most definitely not in Old English, a tongue that had not been spoken for centuries when the KJV translation was done. It is written in modern literary English. Modern English has been with us for several centuries now, so there have been many shifts in vocabulary and diction since ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Seeking advice on establishing the emotional impact of backstory I suspect you may be miscalculating where your story begins. A story arc whose climax has a massive impact on a relationship generally begins with the beginning of that relationship, with all the things that shaped and defined that relationship, with all the things that make it vulnerable to the cris... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: What else should I plan? People clearly differ in the amount and type of planning they do. But I think it is important to bear in mind that in the end a novel is an expression of a vision. Its function is to create a vivid and compelling experience for the reader and while aspects of that experience can be distilled and desc... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How many errors per page volume is typically "okay" in a book? Whether such a threshold exists or not is irrelevant, since you can never know whether you have met it or not. If you detected an error, you would fix it, so the number of known errors is always zero. The number of unknown errors is unknown because you can't count unknowns. Therefore there is no way... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: What are the Advantages/Disadvantages of Dividing a Novel into 'Sections'? They generally announce to the reader the beginning of a new story arc. I think that's about all there is to it. The format of a sequence of short story arcs that combine more or less loosely to form a larger story arc has become something of a TV staple since BTVS popularized it. But it has existed ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Can I can legally use these song lyrics as book/chapter names? IANAL, but questions of this sort fall under the doctrine of fair use, which may differ from one jurisdiction to another. Generally, fair use says that there are certain exceptions to the protection provided by copyright law that allow people limited use of those material for specific purposes such a... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: A novel consisting of three separate stories joined only by a theme. A bad idea? There are examples of separate stories connected thematically. I think the question is, when is such a work a collection of independent stories on the same theme and when is it a single novel. One example that springs to mind is Alan Garner's Red Shift, in which the same story plays out three times,... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Is representing distorted voices via different typefaces, and different languages represented by enclosing brackets an advisable thing to do? This is generally inadvisable (which is not to say that it is not done sometimes). The reason it is inadvisable is that every artform has its palette, its set of devices and conventions by which it tells its story. Mastering any art form is about learning how to tell the story within the confines of ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Can I transition from real to fictional places in fantasy series? Fantasy literature is full of examples of characters passing between real and imaginary worlds. It is one of the core theme of fantasy literature. Indeed, the roots of fantasy literature are all in the long folk tradition that has seen a magical world existing side by side with the real world, and wi... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: What do you call a narrator who is not unreliable, but is naive? I think the closes you are going to come is "narrative irony" or "dramatic irony", but that does not name narrator specifically. I can't think of any case of transmuting this into "Ironic narrator". Actually, that would not work because it would mean a narrator who is being ironic on purpose, whereas... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: In What Way are Most First Drafts Bad? There is a lamentable process by which averages become aphorisms. That is, we see a common pattern and turn it into an absolute rule. Adverbs are often used badly, so don't use adverbs at all. Writers often tell when they should show, so always show, never tell. This is, essentially, lazy thinking, a... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How to deal with nameless characters? A name is not actually an invariant property of a person or object. A name is an expression of the relationship between a person and another or between a person and an object. Thus the same person may be "mom", "grandma", "aunty", "Joan", "Joanie", "Joan Smith", "Mrs. Smith", "the woman in the green ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Writing differently when following different character POVs - mainly age difference. (3rd Person) There are no rules. There is a lot of advice. Some of it is good. Some of it is bad. A lot of it is generalized inappropriately. There are also a lot of conventions which it is safer to follow unless it is necessary to break them, since breaking them always creates a difficulty for which other qualit... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Does anyone have experience with using dictation software for creative writing? I haven't used it in years, and it may be better now, but my experience was that it would periodically misinterpret whole phrases. The problem was not that it made more errors than I did typing -- my typing has never been good. The problem was that when I made a mistake it tended to be misspelling or... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Active voice in situations where the subject is unknown A character that is not lucid enough to see or interpret what is going on around them is not lucid enough to have a POV. If they are not lucid and you say: > Something poked her shoulder. Then the reader is forced to assume that we are in omniscient narration. And if we are in omniscient narration,... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Does a story necessarily need a theme? Theme is not necessarily a message. It is more the thing that you are exploring. If the theme is love, for instance, you don't have to take a position on love, you don't have to have a covert message, like "love hurts" or "love sucks". The theme is love simply because the story is about love, is an e... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Does the concept come before other "literary devices" in philosophical science fiction? If you lead with a compelling concept, you should write an essay. A story is not, principally, about exploring an idea. Principally it is about creating an experience. Creating an experience can be a fantastic way to explore the implications of an idea. But it can only do so effectively if it is firs... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Is a ghost writer an honorable professional, or a hack? Most works of art bear the artist's name. Most works of craft do not. The person who paints your portrait signs their work. The person who paints your house, or your sign, does not. Using a ghostwriter to produce a work of craft writing is no different from hiring someone to paint your house. It is ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Would it be possible to create a character without substantial motivation? What you describe is a person who denies the value of anything, and yet creates things. This is a contradiction. If nothing has value or meaning, there is no point in creating anything, and, for that matter, no point in trying to convince anybody of anything, including nihilism. And yet this person ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How to portray a passively arrogant character? A character is a bundle of desires. They are defined first by their primary desire: the thing that is driving their action in the story. Second, they are defined by their secondary desires, the things that shape or limit how they pursue their primary desire. Tom wants to win an athletic scholarship ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How much does a manuscript change through publication? I think the answer to this is, almost anything. More characters, fewer characters, different setting, different ending, longer, shorter, rougher, gentler. People get asked for all of these things and much more. Publishers are trying to fit a book to a certain market, and they will want you to produce... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: What are the keywords of fantasy that might deliver the feeling of fantasy Words individually do not give the feeling of any genre. It is how you put them together to create a picture in the reader's mind. Just as a painter may use the same pallet of colors to paint a unicorn or a cart horse, so an author can use the same pallet of words to paint a fairy palace in the air o... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Issue with flow of dialogue Dialogue consists of two characters trying to get something from each other. Each has a desire that they want the other to fulfill. Each has some reluctance in fulfilling that desire, or else has difficulty figuring out what that desire is because the other is not, for one reason or another, stating ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How do I incorporate Vocabulary in my writing that I already know? Don't. I know the use of fancy vocabulary may seem like a sign of sophisticated writing, but it's not. Every fancy word you use makes you prose less accessible to readers. The only reason to bring in a fancy word is if you cannot express the idea you need to get across using simple words. The hallmar... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Magic and logic There are two basic uses of magic in literature. One is as a catalyst for a cautionary tale on the dangers of power. Examples of this include The Lord of The Rings and A Wizard of Earthsea. The former is a treatise on the nature of temptation, and the latter on the nature of pride. The second use is... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: What aspects of written dialogue are important when giving characters a unique voice? Few readers will notice difference of style between different characters. Perhaps for one or two of them, but not for a dozen. What distinguished people much more than their style is what they want and the kinds of things they are willing to say. One may be kind to a fault while another is cruel. The... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: What's better in fiction: to make personal statements or universal statements? The point of fiction is not to make statements. If you want to make statements, write an essay. The point of fiction is to give the reader an experience. The reader may, of course, reach a conclusion as a result of a fictional experience, just as they may reach a conclusion as the result of a real e... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Credibility of using English in non-English-speaking worlds The notion of "willing suspension of disbelief" is one of the most misleading phrases in the literature of writing (right up there with "show don't tell"). It is very much worth reading Tolkien's On Fairy Stories, in which he offers an extensive critique of the concept. Tolkien's argument is essenti... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How to writer longer stories for a SciFi novel? A story must always be a story, which is to say that it must have a story arc. The arc of a story is fundamentally built around desire and the things people will or will not do to achieve their desire. Thus the crux of a story is always a choice the protagonist must make about the price they are will... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Is this an example of an unreliable narrator? I'm not sure if what you are describing is unreliable narrator at all. An unreliable narrator is not one who is mistaken about facts. An unreliable narrator is one who is deliberately deceiving the reader. You say the twist is that B is really right about who did it. But how do we know that this is ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How much character development is necessary beyond what the story line provides? In story, character is desire. Character is the things you want and the things you are willing to do, or not willing to do, to get the thing you want. Some stories hang a lot of rich detail on these bones, and some pretty much rely on archetypes to do it all for them, but in essence it is always abou... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How to head off a legal reading of a term or phrase? There really is no way to indicate that you are using a term in a non-technical sense if you use it in a context in which the technical sense would normally be inferred. The best approach to avoiding ambiguity in these cases is to approach the entire descriptions differently. Don't just substitute a ... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: What are the Criteria that Distinguish a Thriller from Horror? A genre is a promise from the publisher to the reader about the kind of experience that the book will give them. The definitions of genres therefore are not technical, they are emotional. A couple fighting monsters in Arizona in 2073. Is it romance, horror, or sci fi? It all depends on the kind of ex... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Legality over using a REAL museum and REAL artifacts in a fictional - HEIST novel Thought experiment: If Dan Brown had required the permission of the Vatican to publish The Da Vinci Code, do you imagine it would ever have been granted? Do you think the Pentagon or the White House would ever give permission for most of the novels set there? Ergo, you don't need it. If you want yo... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Should a reader have enough information to deduce the twist? By definition, it is not a twist if the reader sees it coming. In fact, there is nothing worse than a plot twist that you see coming. Nothing makes a story seem more contrived than when you see the twist coming and it does. Now, if the reader sees a twist coming and then the story actually twists th... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How to know the quality of query letter critiques? A query letter is a sales tool. The feedback you want is not from writers but from people in the business of selling books. I don't know that there is a reliable way to know if you are getting that on line. I think you would do much better to seek advice in person. Ideally, try to find someone in you... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Are idioms in query letters a bad idea? Writers often indulge a charming fantasy that publisher and agents are looking for originality. They are not. They are looking for works that fit into a well established sales channel and that habitual readers of a genre can quickly identify as the kind of book they like to read. Pretty much the wors... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How to write a manipulative protagonist that the audience can connect with The core of this problem may be the misconception that the reader needs to identify with a character. That is oft repeated, but simply not true. A story creates an experience. One way to enter into that experience is to identify yourself with one of the characters in that experience. But it is not th... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How do I end a comedy sketch? It is well said that there are no rules in funny. A traditional story needs a specific story shape in order to work because the payoff is in the climax and denouement. But comedy, though it can conform to this structure, does not need to. The payoff is funny. It does not need to end logically. It jus... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: How do I know when to include subplots? You could think of a subplot like a side dish to a meal. It provides contrasting or complementary flavours that enhance the overall dining experience. How many side dishes are too many? When they overwhelm or confuse the senses? How many are too few? When the main dish grows dull and monotonous with... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |