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Let me second what @ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere says, and elaborate. Fiddling with a setting is an endless task: you can delve into sociology, millennia of history, technology, geography, geology - ...
Historically, most occidental cultures (and many other ones) were strongly biased against women. Women were effectively barred from the vast majority of occupations - sometimes actively, and someti...
Historically, occidental cultures were not as biased against women as you might think. Look, for example, at this source on trial by combat between men and women. It suggests that at least some wom...
how can I write a male-dominated culture without implicitly supporting it? Why do you think you're implicitly supporting it, to begin with? Many fantasy stories (too many to list) include kill...
The difficulty with tonal shifts are their disruptive potential. A story may be chugging along nicely when out of nowhere a stereotypical romance turns into a survival horror. The key to pulling th...
My trilogy features two important characters whose identities I wish to keep hidden. The first is the series' deuteragonist, who is heavily implied to be Jeanne d'Arc (yes, THAT Jeanne d'Arc), who ...
The story takes place in a fictional country I created. There are 6 main characters, 3 girls and 3 boys. They are all "gifted" which are people with special abilities. There are 3 types of gifte...
If you use Spanish for the dialogue, the vast majority of readers won't be able to follow it. Any publisher or agent (real ones, not the frauds charging you fees) will read your novel cover to cove...
As Totumus Maximus noted in a comment, the fact that your character loses the fight shows, right off the bat, that she is not going to be an overpowered Mary-Sue who wins everything without even tr...
I recently published my first short story in an anthology, and have somehow managed to get another in an upcoming issue of a magazine (contract signed and everything). Finally, I no longer have a g...
It is not sexist. Thinking it is sexist requires some mental gymnastics, and actively searching something to nitpick about is, I would say, in my humble opinion, everything wrong with postmodernism...
After feedback on character design for my visual novel, my grizzled Noir Detective is drifting into an Old Jazz Musician. There's a reason I post the artwork: what has gone unmentioned in this fe...
Just break the stereotype, hard. Perhaps don't make him a professional jazz musician, make him a popular, highly skilled amateur that likes to hang out at jazz clubs, and can pitch in when needed....
In Fiction, Write about them as unusual; or give people what they expect. Everybody expects unusual characteristics in their prominent fictional characters (protagonist, antagonist, mentors, sidek...
At the core of every story, there is a moral choice. That is, a choice between values. Circumstances force the protagonist to the point where that choice must be faced and made and lived with. Such...
In any life, there are moments when you can turn one way or another. With fictional characters, largely untrammeled by the cares of real people about where they are going to sleep or what they are ...
Great question! Don't worry too much, genres that we read are just an extension of how we feel about our history our future, and our day to day experiences. It furthers the mood of what you are rea...
Now, to clarify ahead of time; I'm quite aware that compelling doesn't necessary equal sympathetic and vice versa. That being said, here is the dilemma. There's a character that I intend to write ...
I don't recall hearing at all about Transgenders in the 90's, and I'm very much a live-and-let-live liberal on all sexual orientation issues. I imagine the vast majority of people would just clas...
First, homosexual or bisexuality is not necessarily something that enters into her everyday life. A good way to give clues toward that is to devise situations in which she can defend others that ...
It doesn't make sense that something can be 50% eaten AND fleshless; if all that is left is bones, it is 100% eaten. It sounds like the girl is using the tool of necromancy to further her love of ...
I am a discovery writer. HERE is my answer to the "How to Open a Novel" Question. However, I do have a formula. Open with a name. In your case the name of your (real) protagonist (the imprisoned ...
The core novels of the Dragonlance series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman started out as this - a D&D campaign. You might find it useful to take a look at their work. In some scenes of Drago...
It is acceptable when relating a sequence of actions or events. Jake fed the chickens, then walked the rows of the tomato garden and pulled six new weeds that had sprouted, and now he was throw...
In many (most?) companies you do not need a degree or certificate; what you need is demonstrated skill. Technical writing is not a super-common degree to begin with; many technical writers have de...
