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The easiest way to time-travel without paradoxes is the rewind universe. Think of the time-machine as a bubble that preserves your body and mind. The entire universe around this bubble reverts to ...
Time travel v. 1: Back to the Future model. In this model people can go back in time and change the past; however, they must avoid the grandfather paradox or else a "bad thing" will happen like di...
I think there is some measure of the characters and their history relevant to your question. I mean, If the prince's friend knows him from childhood, and they grew up together, they would naturally...
I think there is a mixed use case. I think your Friend Frank can be smart enough to use formal addresses with Prince Peter if they might be overheard, and informal address when there seems no chanc...
Amadeus's answer is great if your goal is story-driven-story. IF however, you're working with something more experimental, I think the nested allegories can work, just like a musical leitmotif for...
I guess I do this analytically, and naturally. Naturally because we all know other people that are unlike us, yet we have mental models of what they like, don't like, would do, and wouldn't do. I h...
So, I thankfully own a video-game history book which I anticipate using to write, rather, a Christian, family-friendly account of this subject. To be clear, I'm not going to be rephrasing from the...
As a spinoff to this question: Incorporating research and background: How much is too much? I'm writing a middle-grade fantasy novel with a historical fiction component based in Ancient Egypt. I'm...
The fact that you use "knobs" that turn is enough, in my opinion. Another way would be to have a naturally scientific (logic based) mind actually fix an older artifact and get it working again. It...
I don't use interviews, per se, but when I think about a new character (obsessively for a week or more) what I am asking myself is how they would (or did) react in various circumstances. I would s...
...? 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...
What you're writing appears to me to be "science fiction". There are at least two kinds. Hard science fiction: Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphas...
I am not sure if this is true, but I heard there were short poems in the beginning of each chapter in Lord of the Rings. Although, this could be done fairly easily, I am wondering if there are any ...
People are Complicated And also compartmentalized. You can find a lot of examples in history of admirable, honest people with feet of clay. One very common twist for the scenario you’re spinning...
There are a few points to balance with an issue like this. What is the tone and style of the work? Does the use of footnotes aid in reinforcing the tone and style. [If the main character is techni...
Ben Aaronovitch in his Rivers of London series often introduces an acronym without explaining it. Generally, the protagonist will introduce the acronym in his role as the narrator. Then he'll use t...
This kind of killing is never done with a light heart. While you can easily jump over the act itself, you can show the turmoil and torment that goes through the mind of those that have to execute i...
Epilogues are very common in a variety of novels, as well as movies (sometimes they're filmed, sometimes they're prose on the screen). My own novel has both a prologue and an epilogue, but I guess...
I would like to use an old photo/postcard (example 1, example 2) for a non-commercial poster. The poster is for a school assignment. The photo would illustrate a map and text about the history of t...
Personally, I go by the number of scenes they are in. Basically: If they are in one scene, and neither mentioned or seen after that, they are one dimensional. They may not even have a name. Now, ...
For some context to my question: The story I'm currently writing takes place on another planet. It is never mentioned whether Earth exists (or had existed), but the characters are all human, have ...
I don't think the problem is a "limited point of view", many good stories are told in first person; and many stories are told in third with a limited narrator: They only know the thoughts and feeli...
The problem about this is that most of the time we want to read something about special people. Sure, we want to be able to sympathize with the character and for example superhero comics have a his...
I think what you're trying to ask is, how do I have a main character who isn't given a bunch of nice things by the author just to make them stand out. How do you have a chracter who isn't given "wi...
Suppose A is a famous historical character with a known history of emotional attachment with a particular set of people. If I would want to write a fictional story about character A that might invo...
