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If the genre is one where the reader needs to connect (emotionally) with the characters, how is this done?
10. [The rules] require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But the reader of the Deerslayer tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.
10. They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.
I remember that discussion. I'm getting long in the tooth here...
3.
This afternoon I was talking to George Scithers of the Owlswick agency, and toward the end of the conversation we got onto the subject of books about writing. He mentioned one I’ve never seen: On Writing Science Fiction: The Editors Strike Back, by George Scithers, Darrell Schweitzer, and John M. Ford (Owlswick Press, 1981, ISBN 0913896195).
I have to read this one.
Anyway, George told me the three rules of writing from their book:
1.You have to put it in a form someone can use.
2. You have to make it interesting enough to be worth the editor’s time and the reader’s money.
3. You have to put it where someone can read it and buy it.
That really does cover it. The best writing advice tends to be very simple. It’s using it that’s the trick.
Inferring from a line in Ringworld's Children, I think Niven didn't originally realize just how strong scrith had to be. So in this book, one of the characters just points out that scrith has a tensile strength on the order of the strong nuclear force. The story goes on. Yes, it's a plot-hole filler. But this is RINGWORLD. No one cares!It's similar to when Larry Niven used the term "scrith" for the construction material used to build the ringworld in his famous novel. He didn't need to describe what scrith was, he just needed some exotic material that had the structural strength to make the ringworld. He probably had a darned good idea of what the material was and how it was created by the builders, but he didn't see the need to go into that level of detail about it.
You show Small Caps with a double underline.
Single underline = italics
Double underline = Small Caps
Triple underline = CAPITALS
Wavy underline = boldface
Euclid, do a search for Jim Butcher's blog (which is for writers) and look for his posts on scene and sequel. He didn't invent the concepts or the terms, but he says that it's in the sequel part that the reader connects to the character. That's where we get inside his head, understand his feelings and his motivations. I suggest going through all the posts - there aren't that many. Even if you don't apply his ideas rigorously, they do give you a real feel for the structure of story. It helped me quite a bit.
Jim,
When I need (normal) capitals in my ms, I use them (with the shift key): LIKE THIS
(Is this not the right thing to do?)
If I need to use small caps, couldn't I just use them?
I also use italics directly, as this seems to be preferred in the UK.
I have never used boldface.