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Yes, it is a cliché. I can list in my mind more than ten instances where work colleagues fall in love. But if you are willing to avoid a cliché, I guess you are without luck. If you have them not ...
Copyright law varies by country, so there is no simple answer. But if the first thing readers think of after reading the character description is someone else's character... then you are in dange...
I am not a lawyer. Copyright violation is often up to human interpretation (not yours) by a judge or jury. They get to decide whether you are stealing a character or not. Chances are, they will de...
So, there are several ways to do this: First, translate into English everything except proper nouns (specific names of people, places, or things) or culturally unique concepts, and insulting words...
Here is how I dealt with Lissien, the language in my dragon book. Pick a few root words and use them a lot. This gives readers an idea of what you mean, through repetition and similarity. Thus th...
Yes. Many cold cases (cases that remain unsolved and all leads provided by evidence have dried up) are kept alive by interested members of the public who want to find some closure to the victims,...
A "script" is general; a "screenplay" is something to be filmed. A "play" is something to be performed on a stage, and more limited because of that; for example all kinds of things can be done in a...
There are technical differences between a play and a screenplay. Amadeus has set you on a good path. The, often overlooked, important difference between a play and screenplay is the required loca...
I would advise a dream like haze of blending reality. Dreams can be influenced by real world stimuli (I once had a dream that I was with Scooby-Doo and the gang and we were trying to solve a myste...
You are trying to describe two talking heads. Or One talking head. Do not replace "said" with anything else that means basically the same thing. Use adverbs extremely sparingly, it is far better ...
I just wouldn't say "humble." Find a situation in which they have done something that is obviously humble, like they risked their life to save a child, but somebody else took credit and they did n...
Certainly. I have written short stories of length fifty (50) and even six (6) words. So in my humble opinion, yes it most definitely can be done. However, it takes practice and application to writ...
Somebody who used the (very) short form as a congenial tool is the German Marxist poet Bertolt Brecht, known for the Three Penny Opera. He wrote a series of very short stories (link in German) abou...
I think "yes", but it also depends on to what extent the author and the audience have shared experiences / thoughts, i.e. how much you can predict they assume / read between the lines. Sometimes yo...
There also a very popular writing competition run by the BBC every year for young writers called "500 words". Some of the stories that have come out of that are very impressive, especially since t...
As others intimated you can do pretty much anything you want with ancient / mythological characters. However, what you cannot do is use a representation from a film. e.g. You can use Thor but you m...
Even if I'm not really a fan of the stories, I always take Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight as best example for exactly this question. Fifty Shades of Grey was originally a Fanfiction of Twilight....
Another example that I'm fond of is acknowledging a work of fiction as a work of fiction within your own universe. This is frequent in the humor of "The Orville" where characters not owned by the...
The answer is no. Simply because there are no elements that should or should not be included within a novel, mystery or otherwise. There are no correct formulas. This is evidenced by Dwight Swain's...
Yes. There're a couple of things to unpack here. The general rule is: a new subject requires a new paragraph. A character or person qualifies as a new subject. It is important to remember: dialogu...
I see nothing wrong with this, provided the dialogue and the responding action flow together neatly. Your example is a bit stilted, but if you connect them like so: "Move!" he barked, and I imm...
I do this all the time, and I tend to use short chapters that will contain one scene and break to the next chapter when done OR I will use a line break (either a center justified triple asterisk (*...
The standard way of doing this in a novel is to use a single line with "---" centered or "***" centered, in between the intercuts. Don't let your editor auto-correct that into a horizontal line, it...
if I were to write fiction with the same characters, same names, Same as the mythology, or the same as recent authors? If it is an ancient text, or even a text out of copyright (like Shakespea...
Read. Watch. Take notes. Read books, read newspapers, study history, watch movies and plays... and take notes. You will find examples full of backstabbing, betrayal, dirty dealing, clever scheme...
