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I understand your concern; minutes at least are very much a reflection of an age of clockwork and in a world with no such machines detailed measures of time jar the reader. I don't know the exact s...
As always in a good story, I'd say it depends. Is the riddle itself relevant to the story? Or, is the method of solving it relevant to the story? If so, I think it's fair to show the reader how th...
Once a physics professor told me that we, in daily life, measure distance with time. In fact he is right. If somebody aks - "how far away is the mall?", we answer "It's fifteen minutes away". That ...
One additional thought: Maybe the way you give time should depend on whether it is done by the narrator or by one of the protagonists. The narrator is telling the story to a present-day reader, so...
Maybe you could write about the problem of coming up with ideas? Write a story about someone who has troubles coming up with ideas. Think about which solutions he might try, and how those solutions...
One thing I would think about is: Are those things the other person says really unnecessary? They actually might give the reader valuable background information about what the other person already ...
TVTropes calls such a character The Watson: The Watson is the character whose job it is to ask the same questions the audience must be asking and let other characters explain what's going on. ...
I just recalled a friend telling me years ago that he witnessed professional proof readers and editors, who work for publishers, use a pencil to plot a dot over each and every word as they read thr...
There is nothing wrong with Chris' answer, but I'd like to add two things. First, (c) (from the title of the question) or more accurately ©, is copyright, which is not used with company or service...
The only way to really expand your vocabulary is to, when you find that you need a word which does not immediately "come" to you, look for an appropriate word in reference works. Go grab a thesauru...
In order of descending utility, IMO: Project/feature/bug tracking software, for well-defined product changes. A must. Email notification to other writers (broadcast) that refers to entries in #1 ...
A cursory search yielded a few instances of other people asking the same question on other sites, but no actual technical terminology or guidelines. I agree with LaurenIpsum's comment: I think this...
I kind of doubt that there is a standard for it, at least. You might get away with using some marker that isn't used anywhere else, like ###, to indicate a changed passage, but I'm not sure if that...
This is a good question. Unfortunately, outside of the programming realm, there's no system for tracking changes at the character level that I'm aware of. (If there is one, I'd love to know about i...
The earliest/simplest I had known and the one that survives to-date with enough support is the classic was: -- (it's already been mentioned in the passing in a previous answer). I do not know much...
Most of the answers on here are adequate, however, I do not feel that they get straight to the point. How much detail is too much? I've read a few amateur stories online and sometimes the auth...
Here's a list of various techniques I use when it comes to naming characters: The lazy approach Pick the first good name that comes into your head. Simple. I do this for a lot of minor or one-sho...
@MarkBaker is absolutely correct. I'll add that metaphors occur in more than just sentence structure. Even when you write in a way that doesn't include sentence-level metaphors and similes, your r...
Talk to people about what happens when they get nervous so you have a strong database of ideas. And give every character a different set of reactions. The main character in the novel I'm working ...
If you have supporters following your blog, you might be able to argue that you have an audience who will buy your writing. However, to be meaningful to an agent and therefore a publisher, your au...
First thing first: Avoiding said-bookisms is a guideline, not a rule. Writers use said-bookisms all the time, precisely for the reasons you note. They're useful. Sometimes, they're the simplest, c...
This has nothing to do with the source control, so the GIT support in V11 and 12 is a red herring. There is no better way of doing this, as of version 12 (April 2016). What you are doing and your ...
As a user, you use API for certain purposes. You have certain goals you want to achieve, and the API is a tool that should help you achieve them. Your problem is, how to achieve these goals. Thin...
If a reader follows a reasonable path1 through your documentation, there should never be a point where he's looking at something incomprehensible. This applies to text, code samples, diagrams...and...
This depends in part on who your audience is, as already noted. It also depends on what kind of editorial support you'll have and on what your goals are. I've seen lots of work, both drafts and p...
