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GO AHEAD AND KEEP IT A MYSTERY!!!! Not only will this hook your readers and they'll want to keep reading, but it will add a different kind of perspective to your novel. However, you might want to ...
If your story is for an audience of one, your reader can finish the story, look up from the page, and ask you "what's the woman's name?" Problem solved.
As always, writing style is only a means to an end (in technical writing, at least), so there exist no rules that must always be followed. Still, there are some general ideas that lead to good writ...
With the disclaimer that I'm neither a tech writer or tech editor: Scientific and academic books are generally organized by function. Unlike a narrative book where the chapters are broken down by ...
What makes this opener work? It puts you square amidst the action--as the old classical folks would say, in medias res, and introduces you to an interesting character, and tells us why me might be ...
GRRM's primary goal with Feast was to fill in crucial details, whereas most of the volumes had the goal of portraying epic plot and conflict. I'd suggest that the structure used in the previous vol...
It's not an easy question you pose. For one thing, this problem stumped George R R Martin, who should be considered more experienced than most users on this website. For another thing, we do not kn...
Hi Standback, Good question. JK Rowling is a far better writer than people give her credit for. Everyone's character is defined by their feelings towards D'dore. He is a kind of compass f...
ReadTheDocs (a popular system for documenting code-bases) has an interesting feature which may provide an answer to this question: literalinclude. With this directive, one can include code example...
The key to good tech writing is not style. Style helps with clarity, and that is useful, but it is not enough. They key is to present the right information to enable a particular user, with a parti...
Looks like you're already following the One Big Law of becoming a good writer: Write! :-) So, with that out of the way, I have a few ideas to contribute. These are in no particular order though th...
Your next step is to start editing yourself. First up: clean out those clichés, redundant words, and worn-out filler phrases you're relying on without even noticing. To wit: ...and started a blog ...
Keep in mind that "attractive to publishers" means "readers will pay money for it". That and only that. What you will need to do is prove that there is a market for this (when we can already read m...
Your difficulty is that you need an elevator pitch. If you're unfamiliar with the term, an "elevator pitch" is a super-brief description of your book - basically, how you'd pitch it to somebody sh...
This will sound like a lame response, but your problem is that you are not famous. Keep in mind that publishers do not want to publish collections of essays, generally speaking, since they do not c...
One approach would be to record your story-telling sessions, particularly in a way that captures his reactions. You could then review those recordings to see what worked and what didn't (e.g. you ...
Children have quite astonishing powers of linguistic acquisition - in other circumstances your son could be equally fluent in two or even three languages. Bear in mind this is your son, so you are ...
I think that the image you have is only one aspect of pettiness. I would express that person as Grumpy Old Man, one of whose characteristics is pettiness. I tend to associate pettiness more with y...
"Petty" is making emotional mountains out of molehills. It's a way of being self-centered and having no larger perspective, and no empathy for others. It's not being difficult for the sake of bein...
In addition to Monica's great suggestions for structure once you've located the problem, you need to develop a way to find all the problem sentences. Either at the beginning or end of every writi...
The issue here is that you want to avoid an identity disconnect between the reader and this character. If the reader is connecting to this character only through their name, then this is not only a...
Here's the money quote from the script formatting rules that cornbread ninja linked in the comments: Some writers also use ALL CAPS when a sound effect appears in Action. Others capitalize impo...
To introduce a character for the first time, to draw attention to an element of the script: e.g. The POISON BOTTLE, the TICKING BOMB. All actual breakdown for department heads will be done by the...
Personally, I'm heavily in favor of #3 as a way of learning anything and everything to do with writing. I too spent several years studying engineering and have done my fair share of technical writi...
Your book looks like just the sort of rippin' yarn I'd enjoy myself -- I was a corporate type in the US for many years, and unwound on a Triumph Tiger in the Rockies whenever possible. Having said...
