Mary Catelli's Erraticly Updated and Exceedingly Ill-Organized Journal

The first guy who seriously composed for the string quartet was Joseph Haydn.  His employer, a man who could hire a composer and an orchestra, nevertheless wanted a piece of music specific to the four instrument that he and his three guests played.

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There is nothing quite reading online chatter to discover what people don't know.  Like those fans who were deeply indignant at the kingdom in Tangled going to execute Flynn Rider.  After all, he was only a thief.

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There's the king, and it's your duty to obey him.

So what's the reasoning behind that?

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One thing that happens with reading lots of primary sources and getting into worlds unlike your own is that it gives you bright ideas for story.

Then it gives you a conundrum on how to convince your readers of the idea.

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Being another philosophical mediation on stuff it is hard to convey to the modern audience -- namely whether the king has the power to legislate.  (I think I've been on a power trip in my posts lately.)

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A character's social position affects a lot of events in the story.  Which means, of course, that the social structure will be quite important. . . .

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Some writers could stand to do a bit more research before they set up their marriage and wedding customs. . . .

For one thing, very, very, very few cultures allowed the couple to meet, decide to marry, and do it.  And the alternative is not an arranged marriage where the bride and bridegroom have no say.  I saw a movie taking place in (allegedly) ancien regime France, where a young man was in love, and so he was going off to ask the girl to marry him, and his father sent him off with his mother's ring.  Not going to happen.  Assuming you wanted to do something so scandalous as marry for love (and there was a scandal in ancien regime France about a couple who fell in love after they married, but then, love is blind), what he would have done is go to his father, and plead his case.  Given that his father was agreeable, what would happen next is that the father would go to the girl's father and say I think our two young folks would make a suitable match, they would duke out the financial stuff -- and the financial stuff gets very short shrift from many writers -- and then they can bring off the match.

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One rule I have noticed that many writers neglect:

Believers in a religion will believe in it.

I am amazed at how many religious believers do not believe in fiction -- it's obvious even from the outside.

The worst is the Pillar of the Community who is called a Fundamentalist. You can tell from the word go that he's a child molester, merely because the writer obviously hates him so much, but I've never seen one that even vaguely smelled like a Fundamentalist.