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I like to compare writing to other jobs: Chef in a Restaurant: Should you serve your customers what they like to eat, or should you cook what you like and eat it yourself? Architect: Should you b...
Should I be myself and write what I really want, even though it isn't getting much traction? Change what you really want! If writing only for yourself pleases you or is cathartic or menta...
Philosophy and religion can be beautiful. Khalil Gibran uses strong imagery and beautiful turns of phrase in his Prophet series and the whole thing is a series of conversations. Plato’s Dialogues a...
SHOW, DON'T TELL Avoid "prophesies" or "maid and butler dialog" about those almost-forgotten immortals that would telegraph what is coming. This is "telling, not showing". It should be a surprise ...
I haven't read his book, but I suspect he is wrong. A character should have some story arc, which will have some shape. I suppose every story arc, even one that lasts only a few hours, could someh...
I think the route taken in "Unbreakable" (a Bruce Willis movie) is a good example of how to do this. Mainly, there are compelling clues that can be interpreted as either an effect, or extremely go...
"Am I allowed ..." No. If you do this, the Writing Police will come to your house, break down the door, and arrest you. Seriously, what do you mean by "am I allowed"? Who is going to stop you and ...
The best writing is one that uses typographic markup sparingly. There are some agents and publishers who prefer manuscripts to be submitted in plain text! If your writing relies on italics, boldfac...
Novels are not a visual medium. Your readers never actually see your characters. So unless the racial background of your characters is relevant for your story, you can easily get away with never ...
What about using synecdoche (a part for the whole)? Doctor X was a polymath, who invented the Y medical procedure and composed the epic opera Z. He was just one of the 300 people, representi...
You have a few choices here: 1. You can group each person's actions together more (I've also edited a couple errors). The tall figure was overwhelmingly tall. It stood in the corner of the r...
You can look for other ways to identify the characters. For example: The tall figure stood in the corner, towering over the unmoving skinny figure in the chair beside it. It moved away from th...
I think you can achieve a lot by just replacing the “was” sentence by making it an attribute in the following sentence, and making use of terms like “the first”, “the former” and “the other”. T...
Is It Bad? This is a subjective question because there is no specific rule which will tell you if the sentence is bad. However, if you are wondering what makes a sentence more (or less) clear to ...
Style isn't something you can copy in this way. Plot, character descriptions, turns of phrase, are all things you can copy enough to get in trouble for it (either legal trouble or trouble from you...
So should I use racism as one of the parts of my worldbuilding? Or write a story without racism as part of my worldbuilding? Yes, you should add racism to your worldbuilding. Wait – hear me ...
Maybe not Racism, per se... Any group of sufficient size is going to exhibit patterns of tribalism. That's just how humans are wired, and it shows up in even the most tolerant of societies. Trib...
So, should you include racism in your story? You have a lot of groups in conflict, and they're probably going to have a lot of hostility toward each other. By the way, if you find this post usef...
Racism is a real thing and likely a real issue that your audience may come across. Even the likes of Harry Potter dealt with this kind of bigotry, as do a lot of fantasy franchises. Harry Potter h...
I don't think it's an oxymoron. Sure thing, you have chosen a strange mix of images to evoke - mainly due to the contrast between "cradling" and "rocked". But as far as I read it, it's a legitima...
Trust in the readers. Describe those future-yet-to-be-invented-things, and the future environment casually, offhandedly. You might want to keep a list of what they are... and what technology w...
First of all, if your story is set 100 years in future, with all relevant technological advancements in place, you would want to make it all clear from the very beginning. You don't wont to create ...
But is it, I don't know, somehow alienating or offensive to white readers that the characters aren't white, and that no main characters are white? Yes, some people will be offended, just like ...
Just want to add to @xyn's excellent answer, it isn't necessarily out of any bad will or intent that white people might be alienated. The more different a character is from me, the more difficult i...
Inspired by @ashleylee, but then I was going into even more detail. I think this CAN lead to being a mastery, but not if one ONLY copies ONE creator. It's a good learning tool, but studying more ...
