Search
The vast majority of the fiction produced in any age is of the type that would generally be called pulp or potboiler. It is simple non-challenging stuff meant to occupy a vacant hour for an reader ...
In the end, every technical document should contain whatever information the users need to get their jobs done. This takes precedence over any template or convention. To the extent that there are...
You may or may not be able to pull this off, but this is the danger you face: You may end up writing scenes that you fall in love with as scenes but which do not fit the arc of your story. Robert ...
I think this is a false dichotomy. To be sure, there are many reasons to write. You may be writing only for your own amusement or catharsis, in which case merely getting your thoughts down on pap...
Well, a true utopia would have no room for story. Story runs on desire and frustration and the moral challenges that result from the frustration of desire. A true utopia would leave no desire frust...
I like @Stephen's idea, which I think you should adapt into a series of exercises. Sit in a park or at a café somewhere and people-watch. Try to write down what you see. You can't know what peopl...
You need to be very conscious of the difference between history and story. If you have multiple sub plots that are not obvious, there is a good chance that they are more history than story. Histo...
While we may be able to break down a successful long sentence analytically, I'm not sure that this is going to help you write them fluently. Language is about rhythm and balance and how the reader'...
Human life is ultimately terrifying. We are all going to die, and the thought of our own extinction horrifies us. But it is not just the fact of death, but also the fact that death (if it is not pr...
The problem is not verb tenses. The problem is subject placement. You don't quite have a dangling participle, because there is no other person being discussed who could be shaking his or her head n...
It is called a frame. A frame is a literary device in which one narrative is contained within another, the outer frame being used to in some way set the scene for the other. A frame has nothing to ...
I think this is an excellent idea if you have multiple invented terms which your readers might or might not remember. Books which depend heavily on constructed languages sometimes have a glossary i...
Harry Potter was not original. Anyone who grew up reading English Children's books would recognize that it is a pastiche of virtually the whole canon of 20th century English Kid Lit, in which train...
The diary format gives you a lot of liberty, as Lauren suggests. But I believe that there is a reason that this format is seldom used in fiction. It can be difficult to make a set of diary entries ...
Certainly a story can have this structure. But your analysis of it seems to assume that the antagonist is a role equal to that of the protagonist in story structure, and that is not the case. Story...
It makes a huge difference that it's a comic. Seeing the visual cue of how the character is drawn will go 90% of the way towards dispelling any confusion, particularly if we only see child Lais and...
The classic example would be The Arabian Nighs (AKA One Thousand and One Nights) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Thousand_and_One_Nights) in which Scheherazade tells her husband an new story eac...
It's a diary. It can be arbitrary. It can be long or short, meandering or brisk, organized or all over the place. Do whatever serves your story and your character. The only guidance you might nee...
By purest serendipity I came across a reference to a book on writing in the classic style just yesterday. http://classicprose.com/. I have not read it myself, but it was recommended by an acquainta...
Doesn't bother me, considering the context, but then I'm known for having a potty mouth. :) As long as your book is pitched to an adult audience, you're fine.
The sexual act can be tender or it can be violent. Its violent aspects can be consensual or non consensual. There are many different words for it, reflecting each of these connotations. F*** is one...
Different writers have different approaches. Some plot everything out in detail before they begin. Others begin with an idea or a character or even just a picture and start writing to explore from ...
I'll add to the already good answers: effective ways to describe fear, doubt, exhaustion, love... There are a lot of writing guides out there, some more general, some more specific. Some bad,...
If you are looking for effective techniques for producing an effect on the reader, you will not find them in writing so much as in storytelling. It is in the juxtaposition of people and events that...
The kinds of poetry: blank verse, free verse, structured (limericks/sonnets/haiku etc.) Rhyme and meter: when they matter, when they don't, when to violate, when Mr. Pritchard should be told to su...
