Activity for Mark Bakerâ€
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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| Edit | Post #39476 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: Do people usually like the side characters more than the MC? The structure of most stories is that the main character is led to make some fundamental choice of values. Secondary characters exists to be the subject of those values (the love interest), the promoter of those values (the wizard), the supporters of the values (the companions), a temptation from tho... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #38094 | Question reopened | — | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39472 |
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— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39472 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: Outlining the climax made me lose interest in writing the actual story This is a presumption, but my guess is that you have lost interest because there is no drama in your outline. The peril of outlining is that it causes you to focus on events. Events are not dramatic in themselves. There is no drama in a set of turn by turn directions, for instance. They will get you ... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39471 |
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— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39471 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: How to start a story after the inciting incident? > In this story, the inciting incident, refusal of the call, and start of the quest are all backstory. Are you sure? You say they are heroes. They have set out on a secret mission. But is that a departure from their normal world? Or is that what these heros do for a living. Perhaps going on secret... (more) |
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| Edit | Post #39466 |
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| Edit | Post #39466 |
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| Edit | Post #39466 |
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| Edit | Post #39466 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: Is quality of writing subjective, or objective? Any discussion of quality in art depends on your theory of what art is for. There seem to be two dominant theories of art today. Theory: art creates an experience ========================= In the case of literature, this means that reading the piece gives the reader an experience analogous in... (more) |
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| Edit | Post #39084 | Question reopened | — | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39456 |
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| Edit | Post #39465 |
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| Edit | Post #39465 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: Is there a formula for creating stakes? Raising the stakes is a gambling term. It refers to betting more and more on a game as time goes on, often in the hopes of redeeming past losses. It is not hard to understand why gamblers raise the stakes. What is hard is to understand is why they gamble. This seems to apply to fiction as well. W... (more) |
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| Edit | Post #39463 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: Difference between News Analysis and Opinion? It might be useful to compare this to what doctors do. Doctors first establish symptoms. These are the facts of the case. Notice that it is possible to miss or discount a symptom. The data being gathered is factual in nature, but that does not guarantee that it is complete or accurate. Even gathering... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39456 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: Are competitions worth it in order to get published? A win in any contest in any field is valued in proportion to the quality of its entries. Winning a Pulitzer or an Nobel will do wonders for your career. Winning the Podunk County Fair Short Story Competition, not so much. However, publishing is a business. They publish work that can sell. It is n... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #39096 |
You will not succeed in getting agents and publishers to tell you why they rejected your MS. They reject hundreds every day. They don't have time to give reasons, nor is there any benefit to them to do so. There are ways to get critiques of your submission materials though, through conferences and we... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39444 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: How can I have a character introduce themselves as humble without making them seem arrogant? Humble people don't know that they are humble. Anyone who burns to say that they are humble, isn't. See Uriah Heep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UriahHeep. (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39443 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: What genre would a fictional eyewitness account of a real historical event fall under? What you describe is mainstream historical fiction. There is significant piece of the historical fiction market that seems to value the historical accuracy not only of period details but of events themselves very highly. They want their historical fiction to be essentially a textbook, but with more s... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39442 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: The concept of "Exotic Culture" and the necessity of a new world A story is like a scientific experiment. You have to isolate the subject of study from outside influences in order to focus on its properties. Setting is the main tool that novelists use to achieve this isolation. For example, the country house mystery is a simple device from cutting off a group ... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39441 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: Dangers of being sympathetic to the killer We often use the word "sympathise" to mean agree with or approve of. But that is not what it means (or not what it should mean) when we are talking about the reader sympathizing with a character in fiction. In this context, sympathy means, to feel as they feel. The root of the word is from the Gr... (more) |
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| Edit | Post #39440 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: How much uncertainity will the 'general (Non-YA) fantasy reader' tolerate? Showing physical reactions to things works for immediate reactions. But stories are not built on immediate reactions. They are built on the long term desires and goals of the characters. It is hard to show those just by moving your character around the board like a chess piece. And immediate reac... (more) |
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| Edit | Post #39436 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: How can I make a character sound uneducated? Begin by noticing that educated is a relative term. Today we tend to think of it in terms of formal schooling. But many people with less formal schooling, may be educated in other things by other means, such as apprenticeship. Similarly, someone highly educated in physics may be completely ignorant o... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39433 |
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| Edit | Post #39433 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: How to write strategy and schemes beyond my real-life capabilities? All that has been said here about doing research, and about the advantage of the author's omnipotence, is valuable. But there is a more basic answer as well. Don't show how the sausage is made. Your hero is a tactical mastermind. Fine, have men drink a toast to his brilliance in the tavern after the ... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39432 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: Can I conceal an antihero's insanity - and should I? This question seems to implicitly (at least) confuse behavior and diagnosis. Behavior is how the person acts, and novels are all about behavior, no matter which narrative POV is chosen. Diagnosis is what happens in a psychiatrist's office. Unless your character goes to a psychiatrist and gets diagnos... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39430 |
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| Edit | Post #39430 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: Character and world building in less than 2000 words The general principle, which would apply in this case as much as in any other is, establish the base and describe the deltas. Don't describe anything in complete detail. Rather, call up a general image and then add the distinctive details that make it specific to what you are creating. To do this ... (more) |
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| Edit | Post #39429 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: How do I get beta readers? What you want in a beta reader is someone who you trust to tell you the truth in the spirit of helping you improve, without attempting either to stroke or destroy your ego. You can't trust friends and family to do this (for the most part). They are more interested in preserving their relationship... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39035 | Question reopened | — | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39428 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
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A: Is it a copyright violation to have the character share some characteristics with a known character? A useful way to think about this is, every story you write is set in a world of your own invention, that sits in some relationship to the real world that we live in. The real world that we live in includes J. K. Rowling and the Harry Potter books. (Which created a world of their own that sits in some... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #39427 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |