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Well to start with, "Adverbs are the devil" is not a rule. It is not even correct. Adverbs are a perfectly peaceable law abiding part of speech like any other. That many people use adverbs poorly...
I have to disagree with Mark's thesis that modern writers shouldn't waste their time trying to use symbols and develop their own. I think you can, and that it is worthwhile. What is a symbol? Def...
Unless you are a famous author with a track record of finishing books, publishers are going to judge you based on the first book, alone. Each book in a trilogy (or longer series) has to stand on it...
Hang a lantern on it. If you're truly interested in not answering these questions, then I think your only remaining choice is to hang a lantern on it: To hang a lantern (or “hang a lamp”) is t...
Many stories have characters who performs offscreen heroics or have their own adventures (as TVTropes calls it, The Greatest Story Never Told). Example off the top of my head is Glynn Stewart's ONS...
Especially for a discovery writer, the first draft of a novel is often as much an exercise in planning the final version as it is an attempt to actually produce that final version. It may be best t...
Is there a breaking point where people say, "that makes no sense"? Certainly there is, but I don't think it is anything you can quantify. In fact, it is demonstrable that that point is different fo...
Whatever the person is hearing is not included at all (unless it is on speakerphone), and whatever the person on the phone says is put down just like any other utterance, in quotes, not italicized,...
First, understand what a character is in fiction. A character is not simply a person. A character is an instrument for making a story work. You can't simply sit down, dream up a bunch of people, an...
I include detail because I think the job of the prose is to assist the imagination of the reader. If there is resonance on other levels, that's great, but it isn't a necessity in my book. The read...
There are two theories of character. One, to which most people give lip service (at least) today, is the one that Galastel has expressed: characters, like people, are complex multidimensional const...
Let's take Tolkien's Middle Earth, and the Lord of the Rings, as an illustration: Not beginning at the beginning At the very beginning, Eru created the spirits which would become the Valar, who w...
I'm a conflict and character writer. For me, the two naturally go together. If I wanted to start with the conflict, I would start by asking what terrible threat is hanging over Sir Nathaniel? It...
Why this is difficult: dramatic conventions If a description of something is unique and also can't be observed incidentally by the reader, as with a character's highly unusual physical features, y...
I would say that two things are essential to make your proposed reality-shift such that the reader doesn't feel cheated, and like they wasted their time. And I truly believe both are essential, not...
While not mutually exclusive, the goals of my co protagonists do conflict and I need to keep them balanced. MC1 works for the CIA and is being burned. He needs help from someone so he can find out...
We produce a large HTML documentation set with the conventional two-pane view: expandable table of contents on the left, selected topic on the right. When you select a topic, if it has subtopics --...
Christian culture is dominant. Thus, even without being Christian myself, I can recognise, understand and appreciate references that are within that culture, like the Pietà: Sam sat propped aga...
In the story, these fantasy creatures are everyday animals that most people in the story already know. How can I introduce them in an natural way that instantly makes readers remember their names? ...
I've noticed a lot of platforms (blogs and such) list how long they estimate for a specific essay/post/article to take for the average reader. How is this calculated? I always read fast, so I c...
Short-stories are a nice format to write. If you have been an aspiring writer for at least one year, it's quite probabile that you've got at least three short stories drafted out, sitting in some d...
I've heard the term "white paper" used in many situations. I've been asked before to write white papers on different subjects, though I've never successfully completed one. I've read many different...
I've written for a year now(ish) and I've come along some great ideas I'd like to form into existence. But I always, always, ALWAYS have one problem. I can't seem to get past the first chapter or...
I was able to gain some insight already thanks to How much detail is too much?, but I still need a more precise answer, because my details aren't bound to a particular scene. I was searching for s...
In programming, it's usually accepted that DRY code is better code in most situations. Does this principle also apply to documentation? I'm asking about the documentation output, not necessarily ...
