Posts by Mark Baker
There are no jobs that pay well for which the only requirement is writing. This is a simple matter of supply and demand. There are lots of people who can write well enough for commercial purpose. T...
As is typical with tired language and cliches, the main problem here is not simply that the phrase is overly familiar, but that it is inappropriate to the scene. This is not a scene in which two pe...
I think the point of requiring evidence of prior research is to avoid clogging up the site with endless repetitions of the same basic questions. The point of a Q/A site, or, at least, the stated go...
The question you always have to ask about a reveal is, what is it paying off and how its it paying it off. The narrative technique you use should be appropriate to the type of payoff you are creati...
To solve questions of this kind, you have to understand the role of setting in a story. Stories do not exist to describe settings. Settings exist as a place to stage stories. Settings contribute to...
First person narration is a gross violation of common sense. I say this simply to point out that all forms of narrative, or almost all, are a gross violation of common sense. Who is telling this st...
Interesting question! Here's what occurs to me as the first principle of distance: From a distance, you can't see the small stuff. At a distance you can see fear of dragons, but you can't see fear...
A story is an experience. The reader has to trust that experience. If they stop trusting the experience, they essentially drop out of the world created by the experience, and once that happens, the...
You don't. Turning a life into drama will almost certainly cause pain to those who remember that life. Life is more subtle than drama. Drama needs a definite shape that life lacks. That is why we v...
You submit what their submission guidelines tell you to submit, nothing more, nothing less, nothing different. If you don't follow the guidelines, they won't even look at you. And the guidelines ...
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 sec...
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 ...
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 cance...
When we give credit to a designer for an article of clothing, we do not caveat our praise by pointing out that they did not weave the fabric or grow the cotton or design the sewing machine or smelt...
Falling in love has the quality that you are often not fully conscious of it while it is happening. The moment where you articulate to yourself that you are in love with someone can often come as a...
Storytelling is about sequencing. If you have a big gap between a detail and major events that depend on that detail, that means you have got the sequencing wrong. This is a pervasive problem in ...
I would make a distinction between linguistic drift and anachronistic references. You cannot write a story about the middle ages in Middle English because no one speaks Middle English anymore. That...
Stories are fundamentally about people, not places. The psychology of why we like stories has been fairly well worked out, and the archetypes of stories are fairly well understood. At its simplest,...
I think there are good arguments to be made that rhythm and clarity are closely connected. We tend to have a very puritanical view of prose preached to us today. It is all spare and bleached and sq...
Is there any other reason to use this device in a narrative, beyond "to build tension"? Yes. In Story Robert McKee describes the structure of a story as a series of attempts at a goal met by ...
There are plenty of examples of novels about adults written for young people in the canon. Look at Rosemary Sutcliffe for example. But this involves a different view of how a reader identifies with...
Think about the purpose and effect of foreshadowing. If you are walking home and you see a column of smoke rising over your neighbourhood, you will probably rush forward with a lump in your throat ...
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 nov...
Because evaluating an author's work is expensive. It consumes time that could otherwise be spent finding other authors. That time is a dead loss if the author signs with another agent. In the end ...
Travel stories are about the longing for something with a counterpoint of fear of the unknown and its dangers. To make your story interesting, find the object of longing and find the the source of ...
