Faith Kindred

Do you ever ask easy questions? Oh, well.

A strong theme is contrasted with its opposite. It is only realized through intense struggle. It is however, heavily idealized. There ought to be no restraint in the glory of good.

The villain, if there is a villain (and there are times you can go without them), must not merely oppose the MC in a…[Read more]

So what do you think is essential to a good strong theme? How should each role (MC, villain, antagonist, protagonist) serve the theme and make it better? Is it better to do obvious themes, or vague themes with a moment at the end when suddenly everything makes sense?

Oh, and by the way, I don’t think there ought to be a limit as to how many…[Read more]

Sounds good.

I’m on pinterest too…I love it for writing ideas and storyboards (and some lotr and humor). My Pinterest name is Authoress of Light. 🙂

Oh yes. I love Ben-Hur too. It’s just all around such a great story, though I might make the complaint that Esther is too perfect— look who’s talking. 😛

Yes, I understand what you mean about taking that approach with fantasy and accidentally presenting a moralist gospel, but for some reason I don’t think that would happen, at least with my…[Read more]

If you’re interested in another blog/site building option, I really like Wix. (www.wix.com) They have a lot to offer for free (of course there is the option to upgrade for a price, but I never have) . They have so many options I haven’t had time to figure out how to use all the available resources. I do know that they’re really into allowing…[Read more]

Yeah, I get what you mean. Negative character arches can be very powerful. That can be one example of a well done sad ending. It would take skill though.

I get what you mean about fantasy. The one pitfall in that approach though is that if you are not careful, you may end up presenting a moralist gospel. If you can manage the balancing act…[Read more]

Good points, Daeus.

I will add a few little differences of opinion we seem to have here… when I asked if the theme should be attached to the MC’s character arch or the plot, you said it didn’t really matter. Here’s why I disagree. Oftentimes, if the theme is whatever the MC went through (learning to lead, learning how harmful pride can be,…[Read more]

It would depend. I might not sign up simply because I don’t read many stories on blogs even when they are really interesting because I’m busy. Though if I happened to have hours of free time (sleeping doesn’t count) and did happen to read stories on line and like them, then yes, I might create an account. If I could read everything and could sign…[Read more]

So here are my follow up questions.

If you were on a blog and you read a few poems, short stories, etc (let’s assume you liked them) and then found that to read the rest you would have to create an account, would you sign up, or just read the public stuff and then move on to something else? If the site allowed you to read all posts, do you think…[Read more]

The idea with rule two was that I would have some stories that everyone could read and some that would be “locked down” and require the user to be logged in to access them. This would require them to form an account which would allow me to keep them updated. The idea is to make them want to form an account.

Thank you for all your suggestions.…[Read more]

None of these are strong opinions, but they are opinions. I have a lot of those.

How many themes should there be in one novel?

Doesn’t really matter so long as they are strong themes. Weak themes are better not there.

How should the theme serve the story and make the story stronger?

I don’t really know. I think its just that having a theme in…[Read more]

I use blogger and am quite pleased with it (well, after I figured out everything anyway). With both blogger and (I think) wordpress, you can have a gadget to the side where people to sign up to your blog by e-mail…so every time you post they get an e-mail with that post and can either read it there or go to your blog and read it. Now, of course,…[Read more]

I know. I really need to learn music theory one of these days! Glad I could help!

Yes! Thank you.

Wow! A composer who doesn’t understand music theory! That makes me feel a whole lot better about where I am right now…

Thank you for those tips. I really appreciate that. And… thanks for keeping them simple. Some ‘quick tips’ you almost need a dictionary to understand. 😛

Hey Kate! Sorry the late reply!

I wouldn’t be able to give you any complicated tips about music theory if I wanted to, because I don’t know music theory myself. 🙁

I just got started by messing around on my keyboard, and I just kept what I thought sounded good. Since then, I’ve learned a little more about chords and scales. If you have a…[Read more]

I use Cubase, although it’s not free. There are bunch of things out there, but if you’re looking for free, then it sounds like Sarah knows what she is talking about.