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If your issue is that you want to improve your writing when you are not writing about a personal crisis, you need to work on strengthening your imagination. You may be finding it easier to transc...
From your question, I would suggest that your best next step is to do a lot of reading. Find books and stories that are in the genre you are interested in, and read, read, read. When you feel tha...
Don't throw it away, re-read it. If you don't like it that much when you re-read it, stow it away for a couple of years. During this time you might try taking the concept and re-writing it with a ...
It's good that you're embarrassed by it, that scrutiny will help you. I'm in a similar situation with a novel I wrote but I haven't let it gather enough dust to view it with fresh eyes... I would ...
I obtained a Kirkus review at the suggestion of my publisher. While the review was not bad, as far as my book was concerned, it instantly became apparent that this reviewer had no idea what he was ...
I don't read romance novels, but I've seen a few romance movies. It seems to me that finding some odd way to get the characters together is pretty typical of such movies. Having two people meet thr...
You have to be the careful type. I am annoyed with the repetition of something in your excerpt. "She wanted to fall asleep and sleep but she couldn’t sleep because she couldn’t fall asleep even t...
One of the earliest Web pages on clichés (in this case, from science fiction) contains a passage about their use: Clichés are not in themselves necessarily bad, but their overuse shows that the...
It is a little too hard to tell what's going on. While this adds to the suspense, it might make a reader wonder if reading is worth the effort. How long can you read a book you don't understand?
I'm afraid this piece feels far too jumbled for me to be intrigued by it. I feel like a lot of unrelated information is being thrown at me, and most of it isn't even real information - it's vague h...
I think underlining for emphasizing is a little bit old-fashioned. But if you write for an audience which is used to it, why not? If you want to publish your writing online, I would advice against...
No, no, no, hell no, frak no, can I get a no from the peanut gallery? oh, and NO. We are not typing on typewriters any more. We are using computers. Word processors, HTML, CSS. Underlining means a...
I have the very same issue on a comic series I'm writing: I want a band of rascals to stand as the main core of the story, instead of a single hero. My teacher told me that this can't be achieved. ...
Story structure is essentially a sequence of incidents. It is important and contrary to what is said in some of the comments, literature has it just as much as light entertainment. But while all ...
Inciting incident is a term for one of the bones of a story, the thing that give it shape. But while a story needs shape, shape alone is not enough. The basic story shapes are well enough known and...
My novel technically has two inciting incidents: One in the first chapter, and another five chapters later. The later incident really kicks off the story. So... that makes me think that the fi...
The words relief and amused might or might not be helpful, depending on what context is available at the time. If the "sigh of relief" line is the first line in a scene, then the phrase of relief ...
Maybe you're focusing too much on what you like, rather than what you like about it. Once you know what you like about something, it's usually not too difficult to come up with something that has t...
There are many many differing opinions on this topic and discussion can be had at length about this issue. Here is my definition, which is short, irrespective of genre and as a result somewhat vagu...
It depends how distinctive the name is. If you have a character named "John", well, there are lots of other fictional characters, and real people, named "John" would not bother me at all. There a...
Put it down and read it later. It can hard to tell whether you are properly conveying an emotion while you are writing. You are the author; of course you know what emotion you want readers to expe...
Let me explain with a scene-building technique I've learned. A scene is composed by some elements. Three of them are: the atmosphere, the moldure and the action. Lets say I want to create a scene...
Short answer: you can't. Stories are about emotions and they are about choices. Groups don't have emotions and they don't make choices. Only individuals do. Stories about groups of friends are, of...
You might want to read some works that have multiple characters that are fully developed, with no one the "star" and see how those authors were able to balance them. Currently, I am reading Leo To...
Because bedtime stories are about getting children to fall asleep and no parent wants to be reading until 3am. Publishers impose word restrictions for two basic reasons. A new author represent...
