Search
Also, spend time on crafting your sentences. To some it comes naturally, but it's also an acquired skill. At the beginning, you should almost never accept the first draft of any sentence as final, ...
Don't let your friend scare you away from doing what you know is right for your book. Sure, it makes it more challenging to keep the audience's sympathies when the main characters do unlikable thi...
The provided answers are very good. As evidence of the importance of prioritizing character over plot, look at any good novel, or recall your favorite stories, and ask yourself what you remember ab...
Were the comments meant for us or are you putting them in the novel? Because if it's the second, you can create an index at the end of the novel where readers can go check the abbreviations and mea...
There are several techniques: Have a narrator voice explicitly stating the relevant differences. Take everything for granted and hint changes indirectly (e.g.: if your aliens have seven fingers d...
All the answers you received are great. From your MC's POV when he first sees someone with seven fingers, you could just say: The Main Character watched the man close the distance between them. Whe...
The simple answer is that you don't. You don't tell the reader anything that is not needed to support the plot of theme of the story. There are a lot of people who enjoy world building as a hobby...
One 'classic' structure of a journey is to write ~ 10-20% of the story establishing the character(s) and their original settings. A switch (marking a decision, a change, a new course for the MC) ha...
Nearly all successful stories fall into the three act structure; the first act is the setup and definition of a problem or pivotal change in the characters life. In the first Harry Potter novel, AC...
I would avoid the following: Stereotypes: it is very easy to describe cliches (screaming, sadistic violence, rage outbursts, contradictory or erratic behaviour, etc.) but they lead to a flat and ...
Make the insanity questionable. Think of Macbeth, he falls into madness as the play goes on but he might not be diagnosable. "Insanity" can be brought upon by something other than a mental illness....
Start by defining the insanity. Mental illness is a very very broad field: you need to narrow down what you mean by "insanity/psychosis"; give your character a defined condition, and write him with...
It is not the personality, it is the style Following on the OP's generalisation, a narrator can be divided in at least two parts: the persona the narrating style The persona is the entity itse...
I'd also say it is worth seeing what "light editorial" is about. It might be worth asking what is driving them to change, I'd ask about a few (three) specific changes you see as critical that are ...
There needs to be a testable theory that can predict if a story is C or P based in advance. Technically, a plot based story follows a story arc whereby the point of the story does not resolve itse...
Neither. People keep reading because they enjoy what I would call the assisted imagination of reading. Or watching the show or movie, or playing the role playing game, all of these are forms of ass...
One suggestion: Go at it differently. Create two characters, completely made up or composites of friends and acquaintances. Then just start having them talk to each other. Don't worry what the sto...
To begin with; This is an expansion of @DPT's answer to this question. A dialogue between two fleshed-out (or quickly sketched-out) characters can possibly develop into something "bigger" by havi...
Adverbs within dialogue are fine, if real people use them (like really). I would avoid stuffing an adverb into dialogue, or using dialogue as a cheat to express with an adverb what should be exposi...
Think of a sentence like a Venn diagram. Each word you add to the sentence is like a circle added to the Venn diagram. Each circle added to the diagram should reduce the area that is common to all ...
There are two simple rules when it comes to writing which trump all else: Always write for the reader (or in this case viewer). Never let anything get in the way of your writing. The second ...
Honestly, I don't think so. A characters voice is as much how they act, perceive things and present themselves as the words/accent they have. I feel that it would soon become trite, repetitive and...
You put a comma (even if a period is intended) when you are going to follow the quote mark with a tag or any other writing. You put a period if the end of the quote is also the end of the sentence.
Leave it in. I am a former professor. In academics "different fields" is ambiguous, and has been used to indicate entire other fields of study: Like perhaps electrical engineering and circuit desi...
"Waiting for the mood to strike you" is bad practice. Your writing muscle, like any other, needs to be exercised every day, if you can, or at least as often as you have time. (Some of us have jobs ...
