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Placing foreign languages phrases in italics is a well established convention that extends outside the bounds of fiction. It is always vastly preferable to stick with established conventions since ...
Adding a couple of points to @Mark Baker's answer (please read that one first). It is fine if the secondary characters exist solely for the purpose of supporting the main character, but don't let ...
As the other answers have pointed out the key to not breaking immersion is to have the actions be in character and consistent with previously established traits the character has. You can have a ch...
That is what secondary characters are for. If you conceive of a story as the arc of a principal character, then every event and every secondary character exists to define that arc, to push the char...
You may be interpreting McKee too narrowly. "Design in time," for instance, does not have to imply a strict sequence. But I would suggest that you look at the word "plot" in much the same way as ...
A story is characters facing a serious problem they must struggle to solve. That is my own definition, though it is simple enough others may have come to the same conclusion. The "plot" flows from...
Different publishers will have different preferences about this. An academic press is likely to prefer a more academic style. A popular press will prefer a more popular style. Ultimately, this deci...
I think the issue of translation is largely beside the point here. What you are seeking is the right to publish the book in a new form for a new market, presumably one that the current publisher do...
The only technique there is really is keeping some sort of "character sheet" for each character. If you can keep them all in your mind, that's great, but I guess you wouldn't have been asking the ...
Foreshadowing. Basically, anything you do, any coincidence, and personality quirk, that you introduce in order to move the plot in the direction you want it to go will appear as transparent manipul...
Time for me to recommend one of my favorite webservices (free) again! Archivos! Why I favor this is it allows you to define and keep track of relationships between everyone, and also to events (w...
Why not just give yourself an alternate identity altogether? You can go register a DBA (Doing Business As, also called an "Assumed Name"), it becomes a legal name you can use, you can have separate...
A love interest is not the only reason to risk life and limb. IRL there are many stories of people risking life and limb to save children, sometimes losing their life. In psychology there is a real...
Here's an easy test: if for all intents and purposes the woman in your story could be replaced with a golden chalice, you're in trouble. Someone stole the guy's chalice, he wants to get it back. So...
As it stands now, your question seems to boil down to: how can I write a story that no one will criticize? The answer to that is, don't publish it. If you publish it, with any degree of success, so...
As others have pointed out, since you are in the main character's head, it's very hard to hide the fact that she feels no empathy. We are in her head, we know what she thinks and feels. That said,...
It sounds like you don't really know what kind of story you want to be telling. The story of a ruthless psychopath cutting her way towards the throne, is very different from the story of a sweet g...
All writing is, in some way, rooted in our experiences The story you want to write isn’t always the story you need to write. Before finishing my novel, I was under the impression that my charac...
What are the dangers of painting a sympathetic view of the killer through the family of the killer’s perspective and in seeing the obvious interior dysfunction of the killer by seeing inside his m...
See it this way: Your text has problems, if you know them or not. Even the greatest master of the craft will not be able to write a text right out of the box without any problems. Since you know up...
As commonly understood, "gradually" and "greedily" suggest completely opposite paces. "Greedily" implies quickly, or with an urgency to complete the task. It just doesn't go with "gradually", it ca...
Is publishing my story like this likely to be successful? I doubt it, I doubt enough Kindle readers would be interested. If by "published" on Kindle you mean sold on Kindle, I think you have a ma...
Write about the articles themselves. Do research and summarize them; they can't all be identical. Then you can say, with credit, John Smith puts this point best, in his article "What to Do and...
First, you need to identify what you personally consider "powerful" words, or poems, or sentences in fiction. Make a collection of the things you love. Once you have a collection of what impresses...
In this day and age should the definition / categorisation of erotica be revised? No. Erotica is a story intended to titillate, it is intended to aid imagination for the purpose of masturbatio...
