Activity for Mark Baker
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comment | Post #39580 |
No reputation? Does that mean there will be no form of social proof or a different one? And if a different one, what will it be? I'm struggling to see how a QA site without social proof is any different from a plain old web forum. (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39576 |
Post edited: typos |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39577 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to convey the anatomy of a humanoid race? A wise writer chooses a point of view that enables the reader to see what they need to see of the story. If you choose a point of view arbitrarily, or because it is fashionable, you will often find yourself stuck with no natural way to show the reader what they need to see. You will then be stuck try... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39576 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How do I introduce dark themes? > "this isn't what I thought I was reading"? This is the key phrase. The reader needs some idea of what kind of book this is. But this is where genre conventions come to your rescue. Each genre had a certain shape to its stories. Will a high fantasy turn dark in the middle? Of course it will. Wil... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39574 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
What questions was my new rep for. One thing I really miss from SE is the ability to see what answers of mine got upvoted since I last logged in (or in the last day). In other words, where did my rep increase come from. Because vanity. Is there a way to add this? (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39573 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to prove that my blog is just not average? Everything Monica said, and then this: There are, at very least, three components to this. 1. Are your ideas exceptional? Most people's aren't, of course, but some peoples are. No one can tell you how to have exceptional ideas, of course. 2. Is your expression of these ideas exceptional enough... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39566 |
Post edited: |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39570 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Rapid change in character I think you need to make a distinction between a change of character and a change of heart. Characters, inherently, don't have changes in character, because they are characters and character is all they have that makes them what they are. If their character changes, they are a different character. ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #39569 |
Maybe the list should be blank until you type the first character. That would suggest that the list is dynamic, and that you can type your own if you want to. If the list appears immediately, though, that looks like a set of preset choices. (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39568 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to hint at an antagonist's identity? By their fruits ye shall know them, but the works of their hands. What follows a character, despite the many masks they may wear, is their goals and their modus operandi. If the character acts the same way, exhibits the same values, and works for the same ends by the same means, we will recognize... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39567 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can you redeem an awful character, who hits close to home? This question presumes are rather economic view of redemption. If the number of good deeds exceeds the number of bad deeds,the characters is redeemed. If their assets exceed the debts, they are redeemed. But that is not really the way redemption works. Redemption is a direction of the heart. A ch... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39566 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How do I know if my cast is diverse enough or too diverse? Birds of a feather flock together. This is a universal truth and one that you ignore in a story to your peril. A story which ignores this truth may check a bunch of ideological conformity check boxes (and that never hurts in the market, as long as you pick the right ideology), but it tends to leave s... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39565 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Scale: How to handle a personal story set in an epic war? One of the most important aspects of writing both fiction and non-fiction is managing the reader's attention. Parts of a scene are for atmosphere. They are meant to flesh out the setting so that it feels real and engages the sense in the moment. They are not meant to be remembered, only to color the ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39563 |
Post edited: typos |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #39563 |
Okay, I have addressed this in an edit to the answer as it is too long for the comments. (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39563 |
Post edited: Edit to address comments. |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #39563 |
So, a story about a dark/evil character where everyone lives happily ever after? I think you need to define what you mean by a dark/evil character. Do you mean the tempter or the tempted? Because the tempted has a story arc, and the tempter does not. (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #39563 |
Well then, how do you account for tragedy? How do you account for Hamlet? (Everybody dies.) Or Romeo and Juliet? (They both die.) Human life is tragic. (We all die.) Literature has always dealt with tragedy. And since life is tragic, there is every reason to care about a tragic character. We see our ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39563 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can I write a dark protagonist for whom there is no hope? Light vs darkness is not and never had been the only theme in novels. In fact, in the simplistic sense in which it is practiced today in things like post-Tolkien fantasy novels, it is a pretty new phenomena. Take most fairy tales, for instance, have more to do with the moral fortitude to resist t... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39558 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Question | — |
Have we ground to a halt? It seems like this place has ground to a stop. I have been trying to do what was suggested earlier of going back to old questions (as surfaced by the Lottery tab), but that seems to be all that is happening here lately. I rather suspect that all the people who used to answer questions back on SE ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39557 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Is there any popular wisdom on the word "seem"? Many people have a personal animus against particular words. "Very" is a very common target. (See what I did there?) Certain words just seem inadequate to their task, flabby, somehow, or inapt. I don't think that this has to do with the weakness of particular words. It may have to do with the car... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39556 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Is the genre 'fantasy' still fantasy without magic? Magic and Wisdom share a common root, but have since diverged. The Wise Man became the Wizard. The natural philosopher similarly diverged to beget the scientist and the alchemist. Our notion of magic, in the modern sense, is a product of that divergence. The divergence occurred as we moved from a... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39555 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: What makes an ending "happy"? Having thought much about this question since I proposed it, I am going to suggest a somewhat abstract answer: A happy ending is one in which perfection meets desire. That is, the ending which is the perfection, the rightful completion, of the story told, is also the one which the reader desired. ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39553 |
Post edited: |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #39549 |
To which we might add that in many cases, the asker is looking for someone to confirm their own prejudice on some question, and will prefer answers that do that over potentially better answers that expose the fallacy of that prejudice. (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39553 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Averting Always Chaotic Evil Why do baddies have to be bad? (Because that is the question you are really asking here.) Baddies have to be bad because baddies serve an important literary function. Robert E. Lee said, "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it." And we are fond of it, particul... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39546 |
Post edited: |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39546 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: What can I ask my readers to help me and how? You are trying to turn a critique into a movement. Is that possible? Sure. That's how all movements start. But critique is easy and it is everywhere. All the cranky old men who write to the newspapers decrying every new development and change in public policy are engaging in critique. Not one of ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39442 |
Post edited: Adding the inoculation argument. |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39544 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Lost my ‘magic’ concerning characters For many of us, our first dive into writing consists of writing plot-driven stories peopled by one note characters, characters who are just types with a name assigned to them. That's fine. Writing is a complex skill and the way we learn complex skills is by practicing one aspect of them at a time. So... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39543 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Introducing evil characters before the evil deeds take place It depends on what you mean by evil. There are many characters in fiction which exist only as the personification of evil. They are not people, they are evilness in trousers and a mourning coat. You can't introduce Satan as anybody or anything other than Satan. They are the embodiment of evil and evi... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39542 | Initial revision | — | over 4 years ago |