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Poetry doesn't have to be as free-flowing and messy as you're implying. Some poetry throws out rules of form and function, but some adheres to them strictly. Think of the meter and rhyme demands o...
To some extent it's not really possible to write a story without three acts. Unless it's only two sentences long it will always be possible for a reader to post-rationalise a beginning-middle-end s...
It sounds like you're something of a discovery writer (aka pantser). You wrote lots and lots of material, and now you have to carve away everything which doesn't fit your plot. If you are a discove...
The most important thing you need to establish is a consistency of approach. Decide on a way to introduce a voice, reinforce it a couple of times and then get on with writing. The important part he...
This is an old thread from a user that, as best I can tell, does not hang around much any more. Nevertheless, I did think of something different to help in such a situation. The OP had three types...
I have been told that the sentence you should cut out is the one you love the most. I have found this true of my own writing: a really interesting section just has to go because it doesn't fit with...
Instead of wasting your time trying to understand how much you can take from other works and get away with it, you might want to rather invest that time into coming up with your own ideas and flesh...
You don't cites the source for a paragraph. You cite the source for an assertion. Each assertion should be cited, regardless of whether it occurs in the same paragraph as another assertion, and reg...
You ought really read everything Liddell Hart wrote. They are no nonsense literature, which is also very well written and easy to read. Because the technology will be different (seeing how you sai...
I think @jm13fire has the right idea: use accents, and give readers a quick pronunciation guide at the beginning. I would go for a caron over a C, which looks like č, as ç (with a cedilla) is used...
Partly it depends on whose idea of quality you want to enforce. If you want to enforce your own personal idea of quality, you will have to involve yourself personally in selecting writers and stori...
I think the answer has to come from who your characters are, and why they are using slang. Essentially slang is an in-group word-game. It's a way of distinguishing insiders from outsiders. It ca...
I would say simply pick a really specific way to change the language, and then change it that way consistently. Like with your example, it uses words that rhyme with the word they mean in English,...
For the reader, a person with amnesia caused by a brain injury suddenly regaining full awareness can seem like a deus-ex-machina trope. From what I understand, as the brain recovers, this person ca...
Start the thing in medias res, in mid-action. Then flash back. At least, that's what Aristotle advised in his Poetics. Although it is more than 2000 years old, it still has great advice for writers...
Use the first three years for Part I. Part II begins with the notation: Twenty years later... Then use "flashback" scenes in Part II to catch the odd event of note that might have taken place betw...
Good storylines are about overcoming challenges, not exposition. Amnesia as a plot device tends to be trite and overdone, however, that does not mean it can't be used effectively. The recent US TV...
Make the older guy more forgiving. Make the older guy more forgiving. Long story short, the older man doesn't want the kid to drive fast. But he is in charm, drives fast, and got into some huge tro...
Amnesiacs usually never regain their memories if memory loss is caused by physical trauma (getting hit in the head by a tree) or drug use (e.g., surgical amnesia). The only way memories are occasio...
Terry Pratchett had a clever excuse for readers if something happened that went against the laws of physics. He'd simply say that the rules were different because the world was shaped like a disc i...
The impact of any turning point in a story depends not on how the scene is written but on how invested the reader is, in how much they are hoping for or dreading or startled by the turning point. ...
The short story Titanium Mike Saves the Day is a series of five stories about a man named Titanium Mike, each told at a different time in human history. It's free to read at the link above.
I think the The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner may be the canonical example here. It has four sections in which many of the same events are related but from different — and unreliable — pe...
"which corrects the mistakes they've made until now" There's your problem. You're viewing this person as a fix-it project, as a series of mistakes to be corrected. You might want to think abo...
The sample you've provided comes off as the classic parental/big brother lecture. Unless the young person is docile, they are likely to disengage, stop listening, argue, get up, and walk away. If ...
