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One method would be to have her narrate things* in a straight-forward way but intersperse it with flashbacks (she probably has PTSD given what she's been through) and/or nightmares. After she meet...
Yes, if it's the Grinch A unique creature, which is the Manananggal (effectively THAT creature's name), should be capitalized. No, if it's a fairy Even if your creature is rare, if you are likel...
Mythological creatures, or creatures you've invented, don't need to be capitalised, just like real-life animals. There's no grammatical difference between "a dog", "an orc", "a dragon" and "a manan...
The opening lines generally set the tone of the book. Why are you starting with your protagonist running? Is that the theme of the story, are they running away from something physical or emotiona...
Disclaimer: this answer relies on my own experience and may not fit your needs. If you story starts with someone running, then there must be a lot of action later. Even if it's wrong, this will b...
Guerrilla warfare The key to winning an rebellion is surprise. The rebels must appear out of nowhere, attack before the defenders can get organized and leave before reinforcements arrive. This i...
the MacGuffin joke I've never understood Hitchcock's "joke" about the MacGuffin on a train. It's clear that it's some kind of nonsense diversion but the punchline just doesn't make sense: “It’...
Having a MacGuffin is not a good thing. A MacGuffin is a trap, a shorthand an author uses to make his characters do things. The best MacGuffin is one that does not exist. Characters need motivati...
Unnerving and insane are not the same thing. Unnerving is how the character makes you feel. A little uncertain, maybe even unsafe or suspicious. Insane is about the character's relationship to r...
I'm not sure that a word such as auto-emancipation sounds anything but pretentious, but to say "she unshackled herself" could work literaly and figurativley depending on your context.
Sometimes What Works in a Movie Works in a Book If you have a chatty narrator, having her/him say "let's go back to the beginning" or "but I'm getting ahead of myself" or anything that indicates t...
The story's tense is all about your narrative voice. It can't orient the reader to a larger timeline structure because no matter what tense is used the reader's now is where they are reading. The ...
You have two feet. Any attemp to wear three shoes will end badly. I'm the kind of writer who finds starting new projects and exploring new ideas more fun and easy to do, rather than stick to an al...
Like any similar technique the outcome of using a frame story depends on the quality of the execution. If the frame ties well to the main narrative and the switch in perspective makes sense to the...
You're being overly sensitive. Any combination of two words, no matter how original, could be already used elsewhere. That's not plagiarism, that's statistics. The only slightly worrying case is ...
When you are trying to flesh out the personality of a character, then a good technique is to write a "character interview". A character interview means that you are asking your character a couple o...
There is lots of potential there. The male protagonist is clearly conflicted and will learn to see his own family and upbringing with different eyes. The relationship with the female protagonist wi...
Alternatively, am I approaching this from the wrong direction, and need to have the Empire represent legitimate antagonistic force? You've got plenty of answers here so I'll offer a differen...
You're working in the wrong programs. I haven't used LibreOffice, but Word is a word processing program. It's not a layout program. Write your stories in Word or whatever. Write them in two sepa...
You could look at how children perceive animals that they do not yet know. What they do is subsume animals that look alike into the same category. At first every animal is called a "dog" (if a dog ...
She would focus on both the familiar and the parts that are out of place. Familiar: * It's an animal (mammal) (4 legs, hairy) * It works in a helper capacity to humans Bizarre: * Its size! This i...
Although a sidekick is good, some such characters are called a "foil", meaning one character that is in some sense the opposite of another, and thus highlights a trait of the MC. In your example,...
There are already many ways of how a "Stupid Empire" could react or manifest and how the rebels could exploit that. So I would like to add a few tools of how to SHOW and EXPLAIN the stupidity, so t...
Why not? Some games have little messages for the player and, if well done, they add amusement. Sometimes they are even further into the game and an alternate remark by an NPC.
Tell someone. The act of speaking (or writing) an idea will reinforce its memory. You can tell whoever you happen to be with. Or call someone and leave them a message. Or call yourself and leav...
