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Any story that has an open-ended ending essentially does this. Star Wars is a great example. At the end of the first movie, most of the personal plotpoints are fairly well wrapped up, but some ar...
The mold you want to break away from has - in my point of view - two distinct but collaborating aspects: A. A change in Status Quo and B. Avoiding Uncertainties at start and finish Now I like t...
There was a Will Farrell movie about exactly this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_than_Fiction_(2006_film) so yes it is possible.
I wrote a scene recently in which one character speaks to the readers directly. He informs them about why he's going to be taking a certain action in a certain way which influences the storyline. ...
Multiple personality disorder Maybe it's not a real condition, but in anything but the most serious work it may suit you well. And I am assuming this is not 100% serious if we are talking to the n...
It could be a good thing, if it means that you bring a fresh take and new ideas to a well-traveled genre. It's often NOT a good thing to write in a genre that you don't know very well, just becaus...
Many books follow a hero that does not really change; consider detective novels going back to Sherlock Holmes. What is essential for a story to be entertaining is that the book is spent on a hero...
Breaking a particular formula just for the sake of braking a particular formula seems pretty self-obsessed to me. If you have a story, tell it.
You'll need to establish that superpowers are part of your world early on. Whether it's magical realism, urban fantasy, or comic book standards, your novel needs to set the framework within the fi...
In determining your favorite genre, there are two things to consider. What you like How would people describe that in terms of genre. What currently exists in that genre is irrelevant... excep...
I think it's fine, but you should consider the possibility that you value different things to most readers. Any book and/or series is going to have strengths and flaws. If its strengths are things...
Internet is a trove of information. In more than one occasion I've found Khanacademy to be a good place to jump start a subject. https://www.khanacademy.org/science/physics/quantum-physics I have...
I generally like to write that names are "anglicized" if they are indeed made up for the convience of the reader. For example, I once wrote an alien main character named "Kyron" and even then, I h...
It can. Anything that makes the reader stop and think is likely to slightly derail the readers train of thought. It's a risk their attention doesn't return to where it was before. This is always ...
Answer: There are many tricks. But beware of symptomology. We are told that phrases like the examples below are 'showing,' but they are not the mark of good published authors. They are symptomolog...
Hill 937 site of the battle of hamburger hill. Remember there is an infinite number of galaxies. And in each a nearly infinite number of star systems, each with many stars and that many more pl...
The way I make my characters' dialogue unique to them, is by considering what makes them unique. But that's best explained by examples. So here we go. Female character is nervous, worries about ev...
Stories for adults, based on, or including elements of fairy tales, are quite common. For example, Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples is a retelling of Snow White, with an evil vampire Snow White an...
Description is too much, when the author wants to explain the scene as if it were a movie instead of a piece of writing. In a movie, the objects in the background are all part of the scene. The sto...
I know this is a short answer but I've started to organize characters using Charahub. I think your wall-method may even be more advanced than that! Please don't worry about being 100% crazily cons...
Are randomly generated names copyrighted? ...maybe. A random algorithm can generate a sequence of alphabetic characters which spell out a copyrighted name. The fact that the name was randomly ge...
I use Scapple by Literature and Latte, the makers of Scrivener. It's basically a storyboarding tool, much like you have created on your wall, only you can't run out of wall space or damage your wa...
Logistics and Blocking What you are describing is logistics and blocking: Colonel Mustard is in the Observatory with the Revolver. Adding the who-where-when details to a scene is no differe...
(1) Don't use synonyms for said that describe tone or attitude. "said" is a word that disappears for readers, your worry about it is like self-consciousness: Only you care! Get over it, profession...
What is your target audience and what is your purpose? Do you look to entertain your audience or also teach them? What’re your average reader science skills. Most people do not know (or care) muc...
