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You are not writing a history, where you are obliged to fill in the details of all the day, months, and years that pass. You are writing a story. You are obliged to write only those incidents that ...
Don't! Nintendo has a history of using legal actions to shut down fan projects. When they come after you, it will be a civil lawsuit, not a criminal one. That means you need to pay the expenses f...
Short answer: you can't. Stories are about emotions and they are about choices. Groups don't have emotions and they don't make choices. Only individuals do. Stories about groups of friends are, of...
I'm writing a novel with a fictional world in it. I've already planned many events and the history of its nations, but I feel that there is missing something for it as I write the chapters. In my...
Worlds and their histories are abstractions. People don't live in worlds and they don't live in history. They live in a particular neighborhood at a particular time. Their horizons are small. Only ...
To appeal to a broad audience, write simply and directly about things of interest to a great many people. Nothing in this formula stands in the way of creating great literature. Greatness in litera...
My high school teacher gave us some writing assignments that forced us to focus on short scenes. She would give us a picture (usually of a painting) where you could see one person, or more, halfwa...
I just hate the common categorization scheme for point of view and voice. It is so misleading and causes so much unnecessary anxiety, not to mention awkward narration. To begin with, point of vie...
It really isn't possible to bone up on the vocabulary of a field in a few hours. The vocabulary of a field exists to express experiences, distinctions, and idea that are unique to that field. In ot...
In a novel I've been writing, I begin by introducing a character and describing her history and personality from a third-person perspective. Now, I want to start talking about a different characte...
Yes, you can develop secondary characters, and should to the extent your narrative has room. While they are multi-volume arcs, David & Leigh Eddings's Belgariad and Malloreon series are good ...
So I'm writing a story that features an alien character, who happens to be a really "internet troll"-ish type with a somewhat godlike tech and a personal army of robots. He/She (?) is fond of Eart...
You are writing a story, not a history. Were the characters of your story real people (which they are not) many things would happen to them in their day to day lives that are not in any way relevan...
I notice in a lot of media there is a strong emphasis on the greatness of evil characters. They can often end up more popular than the good guys in the book or on the show, and overshadow everyone ...
I have this weird problem: I know my characters, I know what they're like, and I know how they would act in any given situation and in the plot I use them in, but I don't know how to describe their...
How would this be different from having chapter one by about their birth, chapter two be about them at 10, and chapter 3 start the main adventure? This is a perfectly normal progression for many no...
It's actually not an issue because "history is written by the victors", who often use their dominance to codify the evil of the vanquished. The vanquished may have been evil, but evil is a relative...
It depends what you want "Taken from the headlines" is something that is both interesting and exciting. It allows your readers to visit a possible version of the future (and whether you got it rig...
@Michael made a good point about some writers being good students of history. Consider it a complement! Consider also that stories with a sufficient amount of complexity are statistically likely t...
Someone who deserves to be smeared over a brick wall doesn't have reedeming features. That's not to say the villain is stupid, or one-dimensional, or his/her only motive is "I like to be eeeeeeevi...
Don't spice up the goal, spice up the antagonist. Pinky and the Brain had the same goal every week: to take over the world! It mattered not a whit. It was just an excuse for mousy mayhem. Taking ov...
Just don't. Unless you are writing one of those nutty Dummies books, don't put emotion of humor in a technical book. The reason is not that technical subjects aren't funny or that technical peopl...
I agree with most of what others have said. Let me just add: Unless your goal is to attack this organization, what do you gain by using a real organization? You're obviously aware of the danger:...
In broad terms this depends on what you think of as "romantic", whether it is just sexual or they truly enjoy each other's company outside of the bedroom. An easy way to accomplish this is to refe...
Can I rewrite and sell the material of an already published book about the history of literature in the form of Q&A? The purpose is educational/competitive. Will this be a breach of the Copy ...
