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I would basically agree with the accepted answer that the main goal of technical writing is to assist someone in a task and it should focus on that. (Most of the time) you want to get a specific jo...
What makes anything in a story believable or unbelievable? Is it consistent with what we know of human nature, the laws of physics, etc? (If this is a fantasy or science fiction story, is it consis...
The term you are looking for is magical realism. This is when supernatural elements (magic, djinns, wishes, fae, dragons, elves, talking gargoyles, people with wings, meddling gods, spells, demons,...
I don't think it's altogether a bad idea, it depends on how you implement it. One of the ways it can be achieved is to have the present day story and the past story running in parallel. This would...
Thanks everyone for your answers! After reading them through, I tried some things and found out what helped me settle into the first person. - Rewriting the story in different perspectives After...
I think you'll find there's no one "correct" way (or two ways, or three, or ten). Everybody figures out what works for them. There are many ways to balance between outlining and improvising, incl...
William Edward Hickson put it perfectly; If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. If you truly think your beta readers have put forth the effort to really give you their true opinion on your ...
Editors often reject stories for reasons that have nothing to do with the “quality” of the story (whatever that might mean). A few weeks ago I watched seven editors select stories for anthologies....
Do not try to query with an unfinished manuscript. Dear Query Shark, I have an incomplete fantasy novel here's where I stop reading and send a form rejection letter -- Janet Reid, h...
There is no perfect place. No social media platform is going to give you attention just by posting there. The internet is full of Stuff for people to read; they aren't queuing up to read your mater...
Forget about promotion. Just write your stories. Submit them for publication in journals and magazines. (I much prefer getting my stories into print rather than getting them online.) If you get to ...
Do a search for "which was." (or whatever your problem structure is) Set up a checklist of five different ways to rewrite it: 1) We did such-and-such. I enjoyed it. 2) When we did such-and-such, ...
I'd probably call it a dateline if it's describing time/date/location. If it's a subheader or describing anything about the content, it's a dek (that's the correct spelling, from journalism, withou...
All the way back to A Wizard of Earthsea, the Names-Have-Power trope usually handles this by giving people nicknames for "public" use. Their real names are closely-guarded secrets. You can definit...
You could always have her decide on a secret name for herself, perhaps one that she wishes she had but never reveals to anyone? That way, if the story is from her perspective, you could get away w...
If everyone in the town is named by the leader, and a couple adopts her, then most people are going to refer to her as "the Kents' girl." To her face they might cal her "Miss Kent" or "Kent Girl," ...
There are two ways you can accomplish not giving a name to your character. Since there is a reason why she isn't given a name, you can simply explain that reason to the reader (e.g. by having the...
What are children called BEFORE the leader names them? This is what your character will continue to be addressed as.
The current wisdom in marketing books is that the art should give the "flavor" of the book. Check out these Harry Potter Book Covers on google images. Or here is the 15th Anniversary edition of Har...
No, a character telling a long story is not by default an info dump. The key to making sure it's not just clunky exposition is to make sure it is not a case of 'as you know, Bob' by which I mean o...
Opening extracts or poems give a slightly old-fashioned feel to a book, so if that's the goal, it could work. In Dune, the extracts are a constant reminder that this is a story of an epic struggle ...
As long as "a few words" is less than 50, sure, go for it. It's additional interstitial information which can be useful to the reader, or can at least add background and flavor. More than two par...
A general guideline that is used for anything that has to do with "limits", no matter if it's about the amount of words allowed or the amount of pages allowed is that you can have +/- 10%. Everythi...
Audience can be broad. You may have some folks who are new, they may need that explanation (just a gist) to remind them that concept (yes, even http!). So you can have a stand alone standard defi...
It sounds like "high tech" is the ideal audience. You don't have to dumb it down or use analogies. Your explanation can be, like, two sentences. Look up the definition in a few places and rewrite i...
