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Are they truly not marketed? They in fact are often marketed, though not in the conventional way! There are lots of sites out there that are used to advertise e-books on various e-book marketers, ...
One thing to be aware of is that some authors "game" the Amazon system. That is, they'll "buy" reads and reviews, through online services that use automation to "read" books through Kindle Unlimit...
Dark humor (aka black humor) is about finding something funny in a difficult situation, one where humor is usually not acceptable. Dark humor is not about being offensive. While some humor is del...
I think your instincts are correct. This structure isn't going to work as is. But that doesn't mean you can't build a great novel out of these pieces. I'd suggest one of three paths: 1) Drop th...
Twist should be quick. Ideally, within a scope of a short paragraph reader's world should be turned upside down and the general idea of what was really going on must be formed. At this point, read...
Dark humour is more about the situation. The theme can be anything - including death and dismemberment. A soldier in battle could notice a fallen comrade and remark about a poker debt he will never...
A complaint from readers if description is not sufficient goes something like: "It felt like floating heads were talking in a white room." Readers wish to feel grounded. You don't necessarily nee...
Description isn't just visual. You did a pretty decent job describing your "blindness" to imagining how something looks. Let's imagine that castle.... How does it sound? (echos indoors? surrou...
Dark humor is pretty simply... its offensive and funny. Now expressing a Dark joke can be hard and fly over most peoples head, especially when you write it on paper where tone and pacing aren't pre...
Determining your audience is radically different depending on whether or not your work is fiction or nonfiction. In fiction, the first division of audience is by age. Is your work for children, t...
I think it depends on how you're going to access it — that is, what you will need it for. Is your story a huge era-spanning saga? You may want to list things chronologically. Is your story heavi...
I too start by rereading a part of what I wrote, in order to "get into the mood". And sometimes, instead of getting into the writing mood, I get into the "this doesn't work at all, it needs to be c...
Vampires and werewolves are such a staple of folklore that introducing the reader to the fact of their existence can be done in many ways. In Interview with the Vampire a nervous journalist saw s...
This is also my problem. The trick to solving it is to understand WHY description is necessary. You're not just checking a box or jumping through a hoop. Description puts the reader inside the p...
Remember your goal: you have set out to tell a story. So tell the story. Forget the wordcount. You feel the story needs more meat, give it more meat. You feel you need to explore more themes, go ah...
Word count is a useful tool, but to feel compelled to cram an ending in when you are still in full stride with much of the story as yet unrealized is folly. Your story will take as long as it tak...
I always start my writing sessions with rereading. I use it as a tool to get into the right mindset and remind myself of the tone of the work. I find that if I don't i will end up copying tone and ...
You've still got plenty of room to run. For example, Elantris, Brandon Sanderson's first novel, is around 200k words, and it doesn't feel too long at all; it's big enough to tell the story being t...
I think it depends on the specific style/genre as well as your relationship with the publisher or agent. There are formal queries and then there are chats you have with someone in a position to ge...
They don't recognise each other as human It isn't uncommon for humans to disregard the humanity of races that don't look similar to them. With no shared languages and distinct physicality it is en...
It's hyper-specific to a character. But here are some things I use. Note that the non-verbal cues will hit home harder when coupled with verbal ones. Some will refuse to talk, not trusting their ...
Just remove all the. The articles are most useless feature of the language. For example: Articles are most useless feature of language. This sentence has the same sense.
You can criticise me, but if I get a name like the one you have used (I can't easily see how you get to the pronunciation you give), I simplify or skip it. The consequence is that hard-to-say names...
Yes, I find it distracting. To me, the problem is not so much if a name is hard to pronounce, but if it's difficult to figure out how it's supposed to be pronounced. Unless the spelling of a name...
You're going to have to change your setup. Either: 1. Stop re-reading your work before you write more. This will feel frustrating to you but it may be a rule you have to give yourself so you can...
