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Not every chapter needs to blow the reader away No, not every chapter needs to blow the reader away, and you shouldn't be trying to. There are multiple reasons that this isn't something you should...
You can't drift off into the distance when you leave a room. Unless it's a really big room. You can drift out of a room, but you disappear rather suddenly, when the line of sight through the do...
It is a matter of uniformity. So, in your case, yes: every chapter should "blow the reader away". Chapters are parts of a bigger work where there is an expectation of both continuity of scope and...
What's interesting is writing for the "eye" vs "ear" -- for example, in the comic books, Wonder Woman is often called, both in dialog and captions, "WW" (a savings of 10 characters) -- but to SAY "...
When I wrote this answer, it was borderline a true answer to the question. With a recent question edit, it doesn't really answer it all. I'll leave it up as a legacy answer, unless there's a move...
The book exists in the present, so the characters do as well. The author, though, exists in the past, since he's no longer with us. Mark Twain wrote about a boy, Tom Sawyer, who has adventures...
Putting scientific definition aside, "Flower head" works better since it's a personification. The human reader has no trouble associating the upper part of a body with the upper part of a flower. ...
A few alternatives: She dived into the flower. She dived into the zinnia's flower. She dived into the petals. She dived into the zinnia's center. Or, simply: She dived into...
You format it with tags, it won't interrupt the flow. "What?!" Marcia said. I laughed, giving her a minute to process my words. "You're getting married?" she said. "I never thought I'...
It's fine to use action to insert a beat in the dialogue, or just as a change of pace from tags. But you must separate out each person's actions (whether it's speech, thought, or something else) i...
After CUT TO: the next scene heading should be on its own line. CUT TO: INT. GREENHOUSE - DAY (PRE-RECORDED) I'd sa...
If you want a limited 3rd person narrator, then you need to accept the limitations that come with it. Either find a way to convey (or let go of) the information in your examples, or change the typ...
I can't say I cope well with rejection. That said, I query in small batches, so I can revise my query (and sample pages) as I go, if rejected. I have books and online resources for how to write q...
All of those examples imply there is some specific kind of secret knowledge you can learn quickly that will change your life. In your example, "really famous" is not specific enough. First, in wri...
I think of legends and mythology (I took a college elective on it) as being about black-and-white extremes, like writing for children too young to process nuance, too young to appreciate flawed her...
Every reader's opinion is valuable to a degree, though some carry more weight than others. If several people in your critique group are giving the same feedback, there's probably something to it. ...
Put your pauses wherever you wish but know that they will tell the reader how to read it. Poetry is meant to be read aloud. Or at least imagined so in the mind. Tell your reader how and where to...
Use the name others use for her. It's pretty standard that, if a patient can't be identified, a placeholder name gets assigned. Jane Doe (in the US anyway) is a very common one (John Doe for male...
OP: ... because the descriptions aren't attached to a person's actions. But you write as if the descriptions ARE attached to somebody; somebody not as rapt as the narrator, and this person has an ...
I'll give my two cents, as someone who feels the same struggles. You'll never get completely over the fear of rejection, or of not being good enough. I say this because even accomplished authors...
It is hard to overdo good dialogue; but not all dialogue is written well. Too often a great deal of dialogue is a one-sided speech about how the author feels; it sounds preachy and unrealistic, be...
You don't own the copyright from anything that you've taken as "references from many sources." You'll need to check under what kind of copyright those sources are. You'll need copyright clearance...
I'd argue that most flashbacks make sense only later in a story, exspecially in visual media, so yes, it is an accepted technique. A lot of times a flashback is used as a for of foreshadowing: it...
Your first example is not a straight-forward, out of the book example of breaking a POV. Your character may as well suspect that other people have a bad opinion on him. He might have overheard some...
When the narrator is wrong about something in the book's world, it's called an unreliable narrator. When a narrator has a single point of view (sees through one character's eyes) then it's inevita...
