Posts by Mark Baker
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 writer...
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)
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 charact...
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 dece...
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 typi...
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 w...
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 storyte...
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 mov...
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, ...
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 b...
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 forwa...
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...
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 kin...
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 ap...
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, beca...
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 questi...
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 ag...
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 ...
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...
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 gi...
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...
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 thin...
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...
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, n...
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 r...
