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I think the reader has to like the POV character. Everything is seen through their eyes and thoughts and feelings. If those are repellent to the reader, they cannot identify, and without that, I th...
My approach (which I have taken) would be to abandon that story, think much more about Cindy the Vampire, and write a story in which she is the sole hero, and her anger and explosions end up having...
One option is to move the twist even earlier in your story! If you want to focus primarily on Hero 2, compress Hero 1's journey into just the prologue. Not necessarily literally the first chapter, ...
In The Neverending Story, Michael Ende faces a somewhat similar challenge: the main character, Bastian, gets his hands on a book, and the narrative alternates between the book Bastian is reading, a...
I think of an ellipsis as a moment in which emotion and feeling overwhelms narrative thought. That is how it is being used here, a pause for the narrator induced by internal sensation (desire) and ...
Edited in response to OP's edit: I think it would be a mistake to tell them who, and I think it would be a mistake to go with an agent that is only prompted to read your full manuscript because an...
You need to distinguish allegory and applicability. Tolkien wrote on the subject: I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and th...
A lot of this depends on what kind of game you are creating. For example there is software that is specifically designed to help you with non-linear story design. See my answer to the question " Wr...
Lyrics are not lyrics until they are set to music. At which point, they are sung to the music. They appear on the sheet music. Like so: (source) Alternatively, the lyrics can be placed not over ...
It likely depends on the field you are in and the amount of work and money you want to put into learning a new tool if you have only used Microsoft Word so far for this kind of task. For example i...
Very short and incredibly rough estimate: 10.000 words are around 1 hour play time. After some research I've found that the answer is... even more difficult than I had first imagined... First of ...
If you already have the outline of the final story and haven't done major rewrites of that for some time you could think about splitting it up. Some details will surely change, but in general for t...
If your givens aren't working, change your givens. If Vampirella McExplosia is dominating every scene she's in, then she's too big for this story. Save this draft (so you aren't putting a stake in...
Show us she's capable, not someone to be pitied. If she's blind, she would have to learn how to better use her remaining senses. So when someone wonders "How hard can it be to rob a little old blin...
There is an in-between. Many ISPs have Wordpress as part of the package you purchase from them. I use a great local company who offers both internet access and online accounts separately. The ...
I would foreshadow the fundamental corruptibility of the hero first. He cheats at a game, gets caught, and is unrepentant. He chases and stops the robber of a rich man -- then demands half the loot...
There's no such thing as "too early in the story for a plot twist". There's even a trope called "First-Episode Spoiler", for when the very beginning of a story contains a plot twist that's pivotal ...
Is this character the only blind one around? Did she go to a mentor to learn how to navigate efficiently? Is there a school for the blind? How old was she when she lost her vision? (I read a ...
One way to do it subtly might be to show the character's reactions to the symbols. For example: John was about to enter the room when he noticed the tulip painted to the side of the door. He he...
Regardless of what you're writing, if you use an archaic form readers will notice, and if you use an archaic form only once and not everywhere it applies, readers will notice that too. If you're d...
Amadeus and Logan's answers are already good. I'd like to expand a bit about the "no explanation needed" that Logan presented. Your assumption is that the majority-readers needs explanation. This...
Expanding on what I said in a comment to @Amadeus's post, I don't like thinking of "talking" with my character as an interview. A character might not want to answer a journalist, an interrogator, e...
...? Why? To me one of the most important points of the this style is the follow-up question: "Why?". Sure it's great to know that one specific detail about a character but if you can't answer the...
I think the problem is that for somebody that doesn't care, Banshee gets awfully worked up about not caring, and this emphasizes an evil side, not a neutral side. I think you are trying too hard to...
You need to figure out what your story's theme is. And then you need to take Joyce on a journey that forces her to make decisions about that theme. That will define whether she's good or evil withi...
