Posts by Mark Baker
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 ...
It is worth observing that some objects have literal structural elements. Buildings, for instance, have a network of load bearing members that allow the building to stand up, as well as countless p...
At the point at which the things they are noticing are not germane to the situation they are in. At any given moment, we take note of those things that are relevant to what we are doing or what is ...
I don't know. What this place needs is not more data but more users. Bringing over a few more months of questions from SE would give the few of us who still check in here something to chew on for a...
Notice that you don't "click" a mouse. You point to an object with the mouse point and you press the mouse button. And the mouse button makes a clicking sound. Click is not an action, it is feedbac...
The "last activity" data on posts appears to be inaccurate. I just answered a question, but while the answer count shows my answer, the last activity data still refers to the time the question was ...
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 ...
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 ...
The point of view of a story is the point from which the reader experiences the story. What you do with point of view should be based on what the reader will want to experience at any given point i...
Human beings are pretty simple creatures are heart. We are formed by evolution to pair up and reproduce. The forming of romantic bonds is therefore central to our lives and central to our stories. ...
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 ...
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...
There are three types of conflict in fiction, man vs man, man vs nature, and man vs self. Man vs man and man vs nature are not particularly interesting in themselves without the element of man vs s...
Do the simplest thing that works, which in this case is example 3. The rules of sentence structure don't really cover these kinds of things. That is a defect of the rules of sentence structure, not...
"And" can be used sparingly in exactly the same way that "it" and "yes" and "up" and "the" and "how" can be used sparingly. Which is not at all. There are words that are full of evocative power (pa...
First of all, there is nothing inherently wrong with describing a character's psychological state and inner thoughts (thought I would suggest focussing on the emotional state rather than the psycho...
The way you do this effectively is through dramatic irony, which is where the reader knows something that the protagonist does not know. There is a fantastic scene in Upstairs Downstairs where one ...
I just heard about this place (thanks icanfathom). Willing to give it a try. Of course, the first thing I checked on was the code of conduct and, no surprise at all, the only item of contention in ...
Distance is an important element of the design of a story. In some cases you want the story to feel very intimate, as if the reader is right there with the protagonist, in their thoughts, in their ...
My rule of thumb has always been, don't quote anything unless you are going to comment on the quotation. If all you are doing is citing an information source to support an assertion, make the asser...
I'd venture to guess that you are caught in the worldbuilding trap. Worldbuilding is a perfectly fine hobby. You can make up characters and people and kingdoms and creatures. You can draw maps. You...
A character has to have an arc and be seen to move along that arc. You can't show the reader the same thing they have seen before, you have to show them development -- which may mean development of...
In this answer, Amadeus makes the case for happy endings based on their far greater popularity compared to unhappy endings. This leads me to wonder, what exactly makes an ending "happy"? Before I...
There really is no convention for indicating the end of things in text. You are asking for a way to move up the hierarchy of the document without a title to indicate the change. There really isn't ...
It makes no difference to the reader. Or if it does, they will probably prefer the less formal. It makes a difference to some companies, but most are discovering that a more informal style makes th...
