Posts by Mark Baker
It all depends on the moral structure of the story. At the heart of every story is a choice about values. (With great power comes great responsibility, etc.) The more conventional structure would...
No character is irredeemable. If professional wrestling teaches us nothing else it teaches us that any character can make a face turn just as any character can make a heel turn. But authors don't...
First, real publishers don't advertise. It is really as simple as that. No legitimate publisher advertises for submissions because any real publisher is bombarded with manuscripts on a constant bas...
Subversion is not just a way to introduce literary variety. It is actually subversive. It overturns the established order. So you have to ask yourself, why does the established order exist, and wha...
Closest I can think of, though perhaps a little archaic: "Harumph, you're quick on the uptake I take it." But, like DPT, I would be more inclined to keep it out of dialogue tags.
Different publishers will have different preferences about this. An academic press is likely to prefer a more academic style. A popular press will prefer a more popular style. Ultimately, this deci...
Foreshadowing. Basically, anything you do, any coincidence, and personality quirk, that you introduce in order to move the plot in the direction you want it to go will appear as transparent manipul...
As it stands now, your question seems to boil down to: how can I write a story that no one will criticize? The answer to that is, don't publish it. If you publish it, with any degree of success, so...
I think the issue of translation is largely beside the point here. What you are seeking is the right to publish the book in a new form for a new market, presumably one that the current publisher do...
You may be interpreting McKee too narrowly. "Design in time," for instance, does not have to imply a strict sequence. But I would suggest that you look at the word "plot" in much the same way as ...
It looks like a fish bowl had a baby with a bike helmet. Images, not adjectives, are what you need to describe something that does not look like anything conventional. You won't get close to the de...
It depends. In these matters, it always depends. It it advances or enriches the story, leave it in; if not, leave it out. There is no general rule that says such and such a thing always advances th...
In a month or two I will have a book out on how to do things like this (Structured Writing: Rhetoric and Process, from XML Press). The big question is, what are you going to use to do the selecti...
Well, first, you cannot write about any politically charged issue without being read as taking sides. If you are ideologically aligned with one side, the other will throw rocks through your window....
Two thoughts. Literature is not about the character's emotions. It is about the reader's emotions. In real life, every single TV cop and mystery series detective would be invalided out with PTSD ...
I'm not sure that you do get through this. A story is an experience. To write the story, you have to live the experience, emotionally at least. When a story does not ring true, I think that is usua...
Setting is character. Where you meet someone tells you something about them. It may tell you a lot or it may tell you a little. It may tell you the most significant thing you need to know about the...
The central issue here is not the extent of description, it is focus. Good prose allows the reader to focus on one thing at a time. When it is time to describe, it describes. When it is time to dea...
Long experience has taught many of us that when you send a busy person an email with more than one question, they only answer the first one and ignore the rest. Thus many of us have gotten into the...
The virtuous transgressor is one of the oldest and most popular figures in literature. We find them everywhere from Robin Hood to Dirty Harry. How can a transgressor be virtuous? We all have basi...
The objection I think most people of faith have to their depiction in works of literature is not so much the author's lack of respect but the sheer ignorance of many writers about what people actua...
Despite the sources that ScottS cites, I believe this idea that you should use a new paragraph for a new person speaking is bogus. Paragraph rules are paragraph rules. You use a new paragraph for a...
"Am I changing POVs if I'm describing what two or more characters are sensing". Not necessarily. If you are writing in what is awkwardly called "omniscient POV" then you can can tell what any numbe...
The theory is bollocks. Here's why: the reader does not need any of it. A story is an entertainment. The reader needs food and water and oxygen and shelter and love. They don't need your novel. R...
Theoretical concepts are always difficult to understand without examples. Plus, the examples can provide evidence of the soundness of the concepts and generally increase the reader's confidence bot...
