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Writing a story in which math plays a pivotal role when you know little about mathematics would probably be a mistake. There is, unfortunately, no way to fake knowing something. You either have to ...
I'm a mathematician and physicist who's routinely annoyed when fiction gets mathematical and/or physical details wrong, even in works that are meant to be about geniuses in the field, such as Good ...
It is not unusual for writers to consult outside sources (both books and people) to describe details and dialogue about little known things. One thing Stephen King describes in his book On Writin...
That's a good place to break, yes. Considering it's such a long quote, you don't want to let the reader lose their focus.
You have broken and punctuated it correctly. But if you're worried about the she continued, then change it up a little: "Well," Antimony began, taking a deep, thoughtful breath, and stepping ...
A rambling narrative can be executed very badly or very well. Maybe it's tool to give color and depth to a world, but it can simply be a sign of an unfocused book. In all cases, what's important is...
Along with nodding vigorously at everything Neil said... You can have discontinuity in the beginning, but at some point it has to be apparent to the reader how these threads are connected. In GRR...
Is this a sign of bad writing? No. You don't even have to have a 'main' plot. See these plot summaries of Pulp Fiction for a good example - different viewers have different ideas as to which...
You should watch - or maybe better read up on - Hitchcock's movies. Build up a sense of normal, dull life, then shatter it. The more standard, dull the image, the harder the blow hits, the stronger...
I agree with Lauren's answer: You need highs and lows in any story. As long as you're not boring the reader, maybe these excerpts are just low points. But momentum counts for an awful lot, and it...
It does depend a little on the genre of your story. If this is supposed to be an actiony-crime-thriller, you probably should cut it. If it's normally slower-paced and this doesn't seem too out of p...
I really love the dialogue in the Guest translation of the Mabinogion, it adds to the feeling that you are reading a text from a different time: A horseman spoke to Pwyll. "...," said he. "...," s...
The short answer is, yes, although there's no rule about it, studio readers do seem to start on page one. Readers looking for scripts for their employers to film look for a lot of things: That th...
I'd use a spreadsheet as a wireframe. If you don't have such notes already, you may have to examine your story a section at a time, and make notes about each part detailing what's going on with Pl...
I find mind mapping programs like Freemind or Freeplane to be especially helpful with sorting out continuity and plot devices. Nodes can be formatted with different fonts, borders, colors, etc. to ...
From memory (and this is quite a long time ago - since finishing my first degree I've used Turabian style rather than MLA), you are correct to use full names (first name before surname), in alphabe...
I just checked my copy of MLA Handbook and I find no guidance on this case. The only example it gives has a single name. (I'll readily yield to someone who can point out that I missed something.) G...
Try this: San Francisco is just coming to life. I can see all of downtown from my hotel room. Ten stories below, the traffic is backed up on Powell Street. ... etc. ... etc. Two weeks earl...
Historical present tense can be used a little differently in fiction, and effectively. This works quite well in first-person narratives. To distinguish this between full present tense narration and...
Why would citing "a well-known historical source" be any different from citing a not-particularly-well-known historical source? For the speech: you found the speech somewhere, right? Book, websit...
Line three has a nice ring to it. The line that tripped me up is four, because the verbs temporarily confused me. "Scars" could be either a verb or noun, so my brain was kind of expecting one thing...
I had the same problem as well. I've got key scenes scattered here and there (though mine tend to be near the end) that inspire me, and no idea how to get there. Sad to say, the only solution I'v...
Beginning in the middle is absolutely fine - in fact, how else could it be? We should come aboard the process 'in the middle, as onto a moving train' (I read this somewhere - it is either Gilles De...
There is an alternative: force yourself to write from the beginning. Use the giddiness to reach the scenes you have fleshed out in your mind as a motor to build awesome introductions. It's like e...
You may be interested in this competition link for a novella. http://griffithreview.com/the-novella-project-2-call-for-submissions
