Activity for Mark Bakerâ€
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: As a writer, should I be upset because I couldn't think of an idea? Fiction is based on observation, not invention. The same stories are told over and over again because the same stories are lived over and over again. If new writers repeat the stories of old writers it is not because they copied them from the old writers, but because both the old writer and the new o... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Typo correction when citing an external source The usual convention is to quote the source as is but add "(sic)" after the incorrect word to indicate that the error is in the source and is not a transcription error. > christians (sic) (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Best Practices for Getting a Sense of Character I think it is important to remember that fiction is not primarily a matter or invention but of observation. You are not creating new stories or new characters, you are discovering story and character in nature and sharing them through storytelling. If you discover character in nature, then your read... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Publishing images of paintings Unless the copyright protection period has expired, those works are copyright and if you use them without permission, you could be sued. Copyrights are property and are part of the estate of a deceased person. The copyright holders are the heirs. Any publisher you approach is going to insist on your ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Appropriate use of outdated vocabulary and terms? If you are after verity, you have far more to worry about than vocabulary. In the nineteenth century the whole style of writing was different. Paragraphs and sentences were much longer than we typically use today and the overall tone was far more formal. Language usage was far more of a marker of cla... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How to write a character misinterpreting Four Candles as Fork Handles The fork handles sketch was one of the most brilliant things The Two Ronnies ever did. And it depends for its success not simply on homophones, but on the manipulation of point of view. You can't write down a homophone (by definition, they are things that sound alike but are not written alike). But y... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Is NaNoWriMo necessarily a good thing? Not necessarily, no. In fact, probably not. NaNoWriMo puts an emphasis on words, and on getting words down on paper. But words are merely a vehicle. What we call "writing" is actually about storytelling, not grammar and vocabulary. The relationship between words and story seems to be different for di... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Starting In The Middle And Flashing Back Tension within a story does not depend on what the reader knows or does not know. It depends on how much peril the character feels and how much we sympathize with their feelings. Consider the movie Apollo 13. We know exactly what happens because it is based on a real incident. Yet we feel tremendous... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Avoiding -ly Words Saying that you should use adverbs sparingly is silly. You should use adverbs, and every other part of speech, appropriately. If adverbs are less frequently appropriate that other parts of speech, then they will occur less frequently in good prose as a consequence. But this will not happen because of... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do I write a story within a story? The best answer to questions of this kind is to read brilliant examples of the technique from great writers. In this case the preeminent example is probably Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (the book on which Apocalypse Now was based). Technically, the method here is storytelling (outloud to a group... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What are "good" writing habits? There is a huge market for simple rules like this. There is a huge appetite for rules and formulas to make writing simple and easy. Whenever there is a huge market for anything, someone steps forward to supply that market, regardless of whether there is any merit to the product they are selling. The... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Describing a Character Traveling: Too much narrative? For an example of just this being done brilliantly, read Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman. A journey is a rite of passage, a gate between worlds. Handled correctly is it a fantastic way to open a novel. Note that Harper Lee makes it very clear that the journey with which the books opens is a significan... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Description of "Unimportant" Details The purpose of fiction is to give pleasure. The question, therefore, is not whether a detail is important but whether it gives pleasure. Different types and levels of detail will give different kinds of pleasure in different kinds of works. The details of military technology in Tom Clancey, the detai... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: I'm using the same formula for stakes over and over - is this a problem? What strikes me about your examples is that the goals are quite abstract. This may be the peril of taking such an analytical approach to developing a story (there are, of course, perils in every approach). Stories are very concrete things. Some very particular person wants some very particular things... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Could I have a writing phobia? Honestly, if you have not yet the read the writer who makes you say, oh no, I will never ever be able to be that good, you are not ready to start writing. Despair has to be the starting point, because only despair at imitation will break you out of the beginner's habit of pastiche and hesitation and ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How can I respond to praise without appearing egotistical? If someone asks you a writing question, don't answer with reference to your own work. Answer with reference to the works of the greatest writers you have read. This allows you to address the question while tacitly acknowledging that there are better examples out there than your own work. It also show... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Does it matter which literary agents one contacts first? I would advise attending a writer's conference in your genre and booking some pitch sessions with agents. This lets you try out your pitch verbally and does not preclude you approaching the same agent by mail later. And if the agent ask you to submit a sample, then you are a requested submission, rat... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Does a reader care about how realistic a book is? Some people will only read books if they are gritty and realistic. Some people will only read books if they are about horses. Some people will only read books if they are about dragons. No book is written for the whole world. Every book is written for a specific audience or audiences with specific ta... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Why do Popular Fantasy Novels of Today Feature Teenagers? I think Lauren's suggested reformulation may be a better way to express the phenomena. YA is a very popular genre today, and much of YA seems to be in the fantasy/sci fi realm. So there is a lot of sci fi/fantasy with adolescent characters out there. I can see two factors that help explain this. Fir... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Am I copying an idea too closely? We are in the business of storytelling, and it is the telling, not the story, that sets us apart. Storytellers tell the same basic stories over and over and over again. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Friends go on quest for McGuffin. Friends have setbacks. Friends get McGuffin. T... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: In narrative essays, should I make all the paragraphs narrative? So if you were asked to build a wooden house, would you take that to mean that you could not use glass for the windows of fiberglass for the shingles or nails to fasten all the pieces together? We say a house is a wooden house because it is structurally wooden, not because it contains nothing but wo... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do I contrast the thought processes of different characters in one scene? The thing about writing is that everything has to be accomplished with a single stream of words. A narrative can only ever be doing one thing at a time, in stark contrast to movies, where many things can be going on on screen simultaneously. On the screen you can create an 18th century ballroom or a ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Advice on writing horror? That's a pretty broad question, but they key thing about horror, or any other strong emotion, it that it is all in the build up. What creates the tension in a horror movie, for instance, is not the thing that goes boo, but the quiet period where we keep waiting and waiting and waiting for the thing t... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How does one evaluate his own writing ability? You evaluate yourself as a professional writer by submitting writing to respected publications and seeing if they offer you money for it. The beauty of writing is that there is no other criteria, no other qualification you need to possess, no licence you need to obtain. If it is good enough, it will ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How can I write a character whom I have no knowledge of? No one is a rival. Lots of people have a rival. The distinction is crucial. Your protagonist's rival does not think of himself as a rival, and neither should you. He thinks of himself as having a rival. That is how you should write him. This is not to say that there are not characters in fiction tha... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Dialogue and action question You need to think about where the reader's attention is supposed to be. You are painting a picture with words, asking the reader to build a picture in their head based solely on the words on the page. If your text hops about all over the place that gets to be much more difficult to do. If you want t... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Can I switch from past tense to present tense in an epilogue? Switching to present tense in the epilogue would suggest that the story is in a frame. That is, the story is a narration in the present of events that took place in the past. The narrator is not relating in real time, but is looking back over the entire story and relating it in hindsight. This is a ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: In multiple narratives, does time have to be in sync? Stories are not organized according to time sequence, they are organized according to narrative arc. A narrative arc is built on rising tension, not the passage of time. Narrative arc can often be asynchronous. Any story with a flashback in it has an asynchronous narrative arc. A multi narrative sto... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Which Bullet Points to Use First Under Different List Nesting Styles Logically, no. The headings delineate the hierarchy of the document. Bullets delineate the structure of lists, not matter where they appear in the document hierarchy. If your style is to indent sections based on the document hierarchy, this is going to result in lists occurring at different indentati... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Bibliography/Citation when writing a book I think your real question here is not about the format of a bibliography but about the requirements for citation in various kinds of work. Some fields have very specific requirements both for what you are supposed to cite and for how you are supposed to cite it. These are laid out in style guides a... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Writing guides for writing like the Oxbridge tradition? By purest serendipity I came across a reference to a book on writing in the classic style just yesterday. http://classicprose.com/. I have not read it myself, but it was recommended by an acquaintance whose judgement I respect. It might be what you are looking for. (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: When to evaluate whether your book will sell? You can't. Major publishers publish thousands of books a year that don't sell. Movie studios release hundreds of movies that no one watches. TV Networks create new shows every season that get cancelled after a few episodes because no one watches. We don't know how to evaluate if a book will sell or n... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Program for Tracking Scene Information I assume that you have googled for outliners and have rejected all of the many version available out there. So here are a couple of thoughts on alternatives. 1. Trello, or something similar. Trello is actually a process management tool, but it basically consists of boards to which you can add lists,... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Reported speech in a dialogue Grammatical formalisms (as opposed to fundamental grammar) do not apply in dialog. Dialog is a report of what someone actually said. In fiction, what characters actually say and how they say it is part of their characterization. What matters is, does this speech reflect who the character is. If you a... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How can I prevent the ends of my chapters from feeling forced? It is hard to be sure from such small samples, but I would guess that the problem is not really abruptness. All chapter endings are in some sense abrupt. The action simply stops. The problem is, where should it stop. Every chapter should have a dramatic arc. It should stop at the end of that arc. A ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Best Resources for Improving your craft? Once you get past the ra ra enthusiasm of the forums, you need genuine criticism, both of your own work and of literature and the writing process in general. That is hard to find online, in part because of the sheer volume of ra ra out there, and also because there is less of an outlet for mature cri... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Investing in the 'wrong' character, is it a problem with the story? Sci Fi and Fantasy are perhaps the genres least concerned with character. Worldbuilding (so called) is often the central obsession of authors in those genres. (Historical can just the same sometimes, with many authors, and readers, obsessed about getting the buttons right.) Characters in these genre... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Stripping the Main Character's Plot Armour? The problem with plot armor is not false safety, but false peril. The central peril of a story is always moral, not physical. It is about what a character wants and what they are willing to do to get it. Physical danger may test the character's resolve or complicate their plans, but the real heart o... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Where can I find a market for "offbeat" short stories about God's relationship with us? Novels are about people. This is true for Christian novelists such as Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Walker Percy, or Flannery O'Connor, just as much as it is true for novelists of no faith. When a novel treats the relationship between God and a character, they do it from the point of view of the chara... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Splicing/Mixing Scenes A movie can establish a scene very quickly based on visuals. Once a scene has been established visually, you can cut back and forth between scenes very quickly because the viewer instantly recognizes the key visual elements. A novel builds up a scene one word at a time. When you change scenes you ha... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: There's an actor with my lead character's name - how big a problem is this going to be? There are names and there are brands. Lots of people have the same name and it is not reasonable to expect that no fictional character to have a name that no one else does. Brands, on the other hand, enjoy a degree of uniqueness protection that ordinary names do not. Some actor's names are not only ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Should I follow my instinct or public demand when writing a story? Let's come at this from a different angle. There is a difference between the ending the reader wants and the ending that they find satisfying. An happy ending can be emotionally empty. A sad ending can be emotionally fulfilling. (There is a reason, a profound reason, why we listen to sad songs. They ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What Can I Do to Familiarize Myself with my Characters? I would suggest starting with three very basic questions: 1. What does he want. 2. Why does he want it? 3. Why can't he get it? If you can't give clear and consistent answers to those questions, you don't have a character yet. In a plot-driven story, it is perhaps easy to lose the handle on these... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Making People Unsure which Characters will Survive It does not matter if the reader expects them to die or not, it matters if they care whether they die or not. Suspense is not mathematical in nature, it is moral. It is not about how likely an event is, but how much you care about it. Every character should have an arc. That is, they should want som... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How can I Avoid Being Frightened by the Horror Story I am Writing? Human life is ultimately terrifying. We are all going to die, and the thought of our own extinction horrifies us. But it is not just the fact of death, but also the fact that death (if it is not premature) is accompanied by a systematic loss of our abilities and of our friends. Man is uniquely cursed... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do you avoid unnatural sounding language? While we may be able to break down a successful long sentence analytically, I'm not sure that this is going to help you write them fluently. Language is about rhythm and balance and how the reader's focus is directed. I think that has to come from training your ear. The best way to train your ear is... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Diagram wider than text width It depends on the book design. Generally speaking, the width of a text column is kept within certain bounds in order to make the text scannable. A column of text will become much more difficult to read if the text gets wider than the reader can comfortably scan. But many books choose a wider page wid... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do I make sure my audience is aware of subplots? You need to be very conscious of the difference between history and story. If you have multiple sub plots that are not obvious, there is a good chance that they are more history than story. History is a bunch of stuff that happens. History consists of many things happening at the same time in indepe... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Runbook template example? In the end, every technical document should contain whatever information the users need to get their jobs done. This takes precedence over any template or convention. To the extent that there are standard templates for a technical document it is because it is often difficult to tell what information... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Editing an Anthology or Compilation I am reasonably sure that you need to begin by selling the concept to a publisher, and once you do sell it, I am reasonably sure that the publisher is going to answer all of these question for you. But I also reasonably sure that no traditional publisher is going to even look at you as an anthology ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |