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My first fantasy novel was told from the perspective of the good guys AND the bad guys. Each had their own respective goals and when the story was centered around one or the other, the reader was s...
I don't think any of the main characters (I actuially hesitate calling them protagonists) in Joe Abercrombie's first trilogy could be described as "good" (or even be described as believing they are...
I had an English professor once who advised me to write papers discussing a book "as if you were explaining it to a slightly stupider classmate who had also read the work in question." His advice i...
Moral ambiguity = the fuel of good literature. To answer your question in more concrete, and perhaps useful, terms: As all us really old people know, there's really no such thing as a happy endin...
Be sensual. Describe how thinks feel, look, smell. In a story, put the reader in a setting and make them feel like they're really there. Include small, realistic details to further the illusion. B...
Simple. What makes writing emotional is when the author draws on their own emotional experiences. Trying to simulate emotion by reading other authors will not come off as genuine as using first han...
I would say that if you're a coder by trade, then creative writing is very similar to creating a complex piece of code. If you woke up tomorrow morning and decided to write a word processor in go...
Another example of this as well as Doctor Evil is Darth Vader. Starts off an innocent boy Corrupted to become evil and follow his new master under the pretense that he'll save his wife Convinced ...
To elicit emotions, you have to have emotions. That is actually a problem for some people; they (by nature or upbringing or both) remain analytical or cynical about most things. They don't get very...
I think there are too many aspects to good emotive writing to list (after all, the way to communicate ideas in a language is covered pretty nicely by its lexicon and grammar; emotion by everything ...
I'm wondering if the main character in your story really needs to be likable. Some time ago I've read an interview with an 18-year old psychopath who killed a few people. It was right before his e...
Your readers will have to relate to the protagonist, even if they disagree with his moral stance and actions. He needs clear goals and obstacles that stand in his way to establish conflict. The s...
Sure there are :) Here's some resources I've found to be extremely helpful: Orson Scott Card's Character and Viewpoint is one of the best creative writing books I've read. He talks about characte...
If they are abbreviations which are extremely common to the field, once per work is often enough to define them. If they are rare, invented for the piece, or really jargon, I would say once per sec...
Stanislaw Lem had a very nice method for that. Read his "Observation on the Spot" for it, although I'm not sure if translation captures the spirit. In essence, the acronyms compose into meaningful...
Read more Write more I also strongly recommend National Novel Writing Month. Not only will it give you a boost of confidence to finish, showing you that you actually are capable of writing some...
In the initial stages I think you have to free yourself from the notion that you are meant to be producing anything that will resemble your finished book. As you are writing a non-fiction volume y...
The Writing Excuses podcast. These guys cover topics related to composing good narrative fiction. It is by far one of the best resources that I've found.
Here's how I see it: If someone you know believes that a character you wrote is based on him or her and is happy about it, you probably don't need to say anything. The only reasons I could think o...
The odds are against you, but them some people do make it. They all use the hero's journey structure - see http://www.clickok.co.uk/index4.html
While it is extremely difficult to break into anything like screenwriting, remember that it's a sellers market. Great material is the key to get in. Contacts help. Nepotism really helps, but if ...
The only thing I can see in this brief exchange to fix is: Line 2: Eh, adrenaline's unreliable. Might only give 'im a heart attack.
Because I find your dialogue interesting as it is, I tried to approach it from the other end and create something different. It's a fun exercise :) I started my thought process on an idea to diffe...
The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Plot! It would be pulpy hyperbole to say that this is the very essence of entertaining and exciting genre fiction; but there's nothing wrong with a bit of pulp. It...
I know it's frustrating, but in general, I'm not familiar with many resources that go into a lot of detail about abstract plotting and story structure. That's because plot varies so tremendously be...
